Armys at war

[Tristfandamir]

Does anyone know what you do if you players enroll in an army? How do you determine who wins, who dies? Or if you don't know, where can I find out?

[WarhookDM]

Well, one solution would be to have them be assigned to the same squad/phalanx/whatever, then run a few battles with ungodly numbers of miniatures/counters/whatever in order to let them experience the chaos of such a life. Also, you could have them keep careful track of individual kills for XP. I would recommend generating several hundred d20 rolls beforehand for combat for all the NPC's, and just check them off as you use them (including any skill checks made by an NPC, saves, and the like). Otherwise, the game will bog down every round when you roll and resolve several hundred attacks on both sides. (It will even so, but not as bad.)

After a couple battles, they should have done something suitably heroic enough to attract the attention of the General commanding that army, and you could have him start using them as some sort of 'elite' troubleshooting force, scouting team, or the like. Then they can be eased out of the army-type encounters, and back into a more normal adventurer mode (except of course that it will be far easier for you as DM to direct the party's actions toward the plotlines you WANT them to deal with; what the General wants, the General GETS!).

[Tristfandamir]

Thanks! thats good advice. One more question though, How do you determine if one of the PC's gets hit?

[Kian]

The guys at Mongoose publishing edited the book "The Quintessential Fighter". In it, you can find some great rules for huge battles. They allow you to manage the combat as detailed as you want to or as simple as you need it, from what I remember, without you needing to make hundreds of rolls.

There are probably a couple of other good sources, just check out google.

[Tremir]

Just because a player enrolls in an army, Doesn't mean that the army fights all at once. For instance, keep it simple for battle sake. Determine what part of the army they enlist in, if they are infantry divide the battlefield into sections, and put them all in once section and run as a normal battle, with reinforcements covering those whom die. If they are intel. Then they are scouts, and it is run entirely differently, because if they are good scouts, they won't be caught =). Or they themselves could be reinforcements, and it could run the same as above. Just because you are in an army doesn't mean the battles need to be huge. At least thats my opinion.

[Valiente]

Tremir did bring up a good point, with the army.

I actually played a character that was a battlefield medic--she only fought when she had to, since her job was to save her wounded comrades. The other characters were likewise put in groups that fit their characters; generals are not going to be putting mages up on the front lines--that's where the melee fighters go, LoL.

If you don't want to run massive large scale battles, or worry about keeping track of which character gets put in what unit, I would suggest, as War mentioned, maybe forming them into an elite type group (since they're supposed to be heros anyways)--maybe give them a few NPCs if you need to to even out numbers or fill in any gaps.

Hope that helped some. ^^

-Val

[WarhookDM]

Use them as a scout team. . .that's a good idea. That way, they are on the fringe of any battles, and you can just run those encounters, while describing the larger picture of the battle itself as a cinematic event.

This gets rid of the need to tabletop massive battles. It also gives you the opportunity for the PC's to attract the General's attention in a number of possible ways.

1) They foil an attempted ambush aimed at taking out the general. {IMHO, the best way to do this would be for them to stumble across the ambush just as it begins. This lets the General SEE them in action. It also gets them lots more XP, because you can use slightly more powerful bad guys without much fear of a TPK, since the general and his bodyguard can be assumed to be much higher level than the party. While they won't necessarily gain much treasure, as DM you will be VERY GLAD of that at higher levels. TRUST ME on this point; I am running a (now) High level campaign where some randomly rolled treasures got them WAY too much cash early on, and they have been over-equipped ever since. It will likely not balance out until they are into epic levels. But I digress. . .}

2) A battle goes horribly wrong, and they pull the General out of the middle of a collapsing line, saving his life. This gives you some high drama, the fun of the PC's making a thundering desperate charge across a battlefield to rescue their leader, and a lot of tension - "Will our intrepid adventurers make it in time? Tune in next time. . ."

3) Perhaps in addition to #2, above, they then get to engage in some SERIOUS guerilla warfare to slow down the advancing horde. That's always good for some several hours of hack and slash fun.

[airlonnie]

What if the players stumble upon a group of their fellow soldiers pillaging or looting? Do they join in(my party did) or do they stop them? Maybe they just ignore it.

As for who wins, my friend did a thing where we had several missions , depending on whether we botched it, or won it, determined how much water/supplies we got. We were playing in the Dark Sun Campaign. As a result of failing to save the supply line (4 times), failing to capture an oasis, and failing to scout properly,our starving army was out flanked, out thought, out manuevered, and subsequently rolled over by the enemy. It was cool because we got to play as deserters. Man, that was a fun one.

When I say missions, I dont mean we got to pick it from a list or something, it was just part of the story line, You understand?

[Shadow Dragon]

You could always just run smaller encounters, since keeping track of an entire army bogs down the game (horribly). Such as, maybe just run an encounter with 10-20 enemies, adding enemies and allies as they get done with their own battles and attack the enemy in the PC battle area, or subtract some that become preoccupied with some other enemy. This will probably be easier than warhookDM's idea (though his was much, MUCH more realistic), and you can prepare a handful of statistics for each kind of enemy (like 6 warriors, 4 mages, 8 fighters, 2 bards, ect.) and maybe a table similiar to a random encounter table.

Just my two cents worth... perhaps a bit wordy, but my two cents.

[WarhookDM]

Had to edit the color, Shadow. That Indigo was nearly impossible to read. Sorry.

But I do like your method better for playability.

One method I used for a battle was using squad counters for most of the big picture. Then I did one hit roll for each squad. If a squad hit an opposing squad, I rolled a d10 to determine how many died, and marked it on the counter. I also assumed that all such combat was simultaneous, so even if a squad was totally wiped out, it still got a chance to inflict some casualties that round.

Then when the PC's would close with a squad, I would essentially zoom in, placing the appropriate number of miniatures on the "battle" section of our board, and resolve it normally.

It helps that we have built a gridded 4' x 8' gaming table for our sessions, and that we have WAY to many mini's. :D

[Shadow Dragon]

My deepest apologies about the color. It seems my monitor is a little brighter than normal. I'll try a diffrent color.

Great idea about the squad counters. I don't have much else to contribute, except maybe morale effects? Perhaps the more people dead on any given side, that side's morale goes down (unless they still have more than the enemy.) This would be a morale penalty to hit, and on skill checks and saves (not that skills are used much in medieval military combat... but you never know...). Undead, constructs, and anything else that lacks emotion would be immune to this.
In reverse, certain things may add morale, such as seeing high-level allies, hearing an uplifting speech from you general (or king, or even just your best friend). The military would probably have mages research spells that lowered or raised morale. I would figure most PCs would add morale to their squad, and paladins would add even more. Owning a dragon does wonders for morale, and lowers enemy morale.
I don't know, just some more ramblings.

[WarhookDM]

Oh, a dragon will screw up a battlefield in the blink of an eye. EVERYONE within range of its fear effect must save or flee. Regardless of which side they are on. Picture several hundred level 1 Warriors, on both sides, suddenly having to make a will save with the DC in even the low 20's, and you will immediately understand the absolute pandemonium that would ensue by a low flyby. Never mind what the breath weapon would do on top of that fear. (This happened in my campaign about a month or so ago.) Sure would make for an interesting way to stop a battle though; a good aligned dragon who happpens to be a pacifist at heart keeps stopping the battles of a couple feuding lords by hovering over the field, and staying near the largest concentration of troops. :rotflmao:

[Tremir]

LOL on the dragon. Would ya mind if I used that in an upcoming campaign? Thats great...

[WarhookDM]

Feel free. But keep it a GOOD dragon, and make the PC's (assuming they are also good) then try to either end the feud, or convince the dragon to relocate, or something. Or simply don't tell them it is a good dragon; then if they CHOOSE to try to kill it. . .well quests for atonement can be a real bitch.

[hamster]

one has to think about the size of the battles as well...
remember, this is "supposed" to be happening back in the day, when a few hundred men could be called a sizeable army, and 2000 gobbies a horde...with this is mind, the battles become slightly more easy to handle...

another trick my buddy dan and i came up with in our airship-driven campaign recently, was to make 2 d20 rolls for each unit of people, in this case airships and their crews...one of these was a modified attack roll, the other a "defense" roll...and the difference btw the atk and def rolls of the opposing ships resulted in either damage to the vessel or the crew

please keep in mind, both of us are fairly free-form GM's ...in other words, if we want something to happen, or the pcs do something really cool, it'll most likely happen, so we're a little less strict on the rules than most..

that being said, i really like the ideas of an elite group of soldiers that gets missions directly from the commanding general...this would prove to be great story hooks, and u can reuse the NPC general in LOTS of ways....

hehehehe <---evil DM laughter there