Hi Guys, I'm in a bit of a pickle here. You see, upcoming in my campaign is the opportunity for my players to participate in large scale warfare; by way of an assault on a fortified coastal town from the inland areas. Having looked over the UA Mass Combat playtest material from 2017, Im not sure if Im fully fond of it. I wanted to see what you all think. Currently since this assault will involve Dragons + Players(6) + Eladrin forces(Airships + Ground forces) + Human forces vs Tyrant + Airships + Mind flayers + Abyssal Creatures + Gemstone Dragons. The name of the game is to create Homebrew monster sheets for battalions, allowing the players to command such forces and perhaps choose one that they would want their character to lead, similiarlly to how the 2017 playtest would do. Where I struggle is integrating the Airships and Dragons. Doing 3D combat in the theater of the mind is difficult and during the time of social distances we are online. I have looked at resources such as Roll20 but dont see how they do 3D combat either. I'd love to hear your suggestions.
I haven't come across/developed a mass combat scenario that I like as a DM, so I try to plug in war plots with behind-the-lines work, or special forces type scenarios. After all, an adventuring group is a small unit of persons with special skill sets. For instance, if the plot demands that principality A is attacking principality B in a Civil War, and the adventurer group is currently under the employment of principality B, well...I try to find a special mission for them to undertake, rather than defending a Capitol City's walls against siege engines and forces greater than 25 enemy soldiers. Especially online, without a map.
But...if anyone here has any great mass combat hacks, I would also be interested to know of them, so I'll be following this thread!
For mass combat, ever since the basic/expert D&D, I have relied on the War Machine. See this post for example.
I have updated it for almost every version of D&D since then and it never fails to deliver. It works very well with theater of the mind and allows the players to direct units and make up their tactics. If you are interested, we can discuss it more, the only problem is that the original is still copyrighted so I cannot post large excerpts of the rules here. But if you can get your hands on the D&D cyclopedia, it gives you the basic inspiration.
Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers has a pretty simplistic way of dealing with mass combat. Waiting on his Kingdoms & Warfare to launch which will supposedly have additional/advanced rules.
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"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
From a VTT point of view, in roll20 you could use the number bubbles; but I don't know if other players can see bubbles of other tokens. Alternatively, FoundryVTT has a field on their tokens for height.
Do you definitely need each player to command a unit in such detail? You could have the players making skill rolls to decide the best tactics for their troops - pitting their wits/skills against the commanders of the defending units.
Hi Guys,
I'm in a bit of a pickle here. You see, upcoming in my campaign is the opportunity for my players to participate in large scale warfare; by way of an assault on a fortified coastal town from the inland areas. Having looked over the UA Mass Combat playtest material from 2017, Im not sure if Im fully fond of it. I wanted to see what you all think. Currently since this assault will involve Dragons + Players(6) + Eladrin forces(Airships + Ground forces) + Human forces vs Tyrant + Airships + Mind flayers + Abyssal Creatures + Gemstone Dragons. The name of the game is to create Homebrew monster sheets for battalions, allowing the players to command such forces and perhaps choose one that they would want their character to lead, similiarlly to how the 2017 playtest would do. Where I struggle is integrating the Airships and Dragons. Doing 3D combat in the theater of the mind is difficult and during the time of social distances we are online. I have looked at resources such as Roll20 but dont see how they do 3D combat either. I'd love to hear your suggestions.
Have you checked the aerial combat thread for ideas? https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/81080-aerial-encounters
The issue I see with the system of using the dots is that tokens overlap causing confusion. Say a dragon overlaps with some ground forces.
Come up with a swarm stat block for the monsters. It helps a bunch.
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I haven't come across/developed a mass combat scenario that I like as a DM, so I try to plug in war plots with behind-the-lines work, or special forces type scenarios. After all, an adventuring group is a small unit of persons with special skill sets. For instance, if the plot demands that principality A is attacking principality B in a Civil War, and the adventurer group is currently under the employment of principality B, well...I try to find a special mission for them to undertake, rather than defending a Capitol City's walls against siege engines and forces greater than 25 enemy soldiers. Especially online, without a map.
But...if anyone here has any great mass combat hacks, I would also be interested to know of them, so I'll be following this thread!
💙🤍~*Ravenclaw*~ 🔮
Thanks for sharing!
💙🤍~*Ravenclaw*~ 🔮
Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers has a pretty simplistic way of dealing with mass combat. Waiting on his Kingdoms & Warfare to launch which will supposedly have additional/advanced rules.
#OpenD&D #ORC
"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
From a VTT point of view, in roll20 you could use the number bubbles; but I don't know if other players can see bubbles of other tokens. Alternatively, FoundryVTT has a field on their tokens for height.
Do you definitely need each player to command a unit in such detail? You could have the players making skill rolls to decide the best tactics for their troops - pitting their wits/skills against the commanders of the defending units.
Try doing a skills challenge instead. I think its from 4th ed. I just saw a video on this and I thought it was great!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF28JESUye8&ab_channel=TheDungeonCoach