>finally get to do a mass battle in DND
>DM uses mob / troop rules (1 hit point pool for clusters of 20 enemies)
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>finally get to do a mass battle in DND. >DM uses mob?
have you tried?
well because sometimes I do
My ghetto gospel
getting angry won't bring neighbors into the situation where troops are needed
you need to in case the talk considers the rules interference
lawyers don't matter when masses are reduced
then stop inflation with more gold
O MY GOD DID I TRY
In a different system, I once ran a mass combat with a total of roughly 800 characters including enemies, the pcs, and their allies. Due to the fact that there were 600 enemies and that was annoying as hell to keep tracking (even with the enemies mostly being weak goblin soldiers) I had the enemies summon a massive boss that would devour the souls of some of the soldiers each round if there werent enough summoners.
Though that system was not made for mass combat, I have never in my life experienced a 3-session-long combat encounter before or after this. Though the boss took up 2 of those sessions, that encounter would have likely taken at least another session if it had not entered the fray.
pic related
Do you WANT to still be playing this session when next session starts?
And I don't mean "Picking up where you left off"
I've run a combat with 250 individual opponents in 4 hours. Yes around half of them were wiped out by fireballs but that's still over 100 opponents that had to be hacked through. It isn't hard if you have a f--kin brain.
Any tips to speed things up?
just use your f--kin brain!
Yes, yes, of course. I can run a 250v250 encounter without fireballs in less than an hour but that's just me rolling dice against myself and combat is always smooth in those circumstances.
I was wondering if there was anything specific you had in mind to watch out for considering you have experience doing this with players. I mean, I'm assuming you're doing this with players and that you didn't spend most of those 4 hours rolling npc vs NPC attacks.
>f--kin
He wasn't swearing, he was just letting us know he's an f-kin. It's a type of furry.
You can swear on Gankerz anon, your mom won't know it's you posting.
Trying to swear less or not at all is a personal choice for some people.
"Frick", "shit", "c**t"
No value to them, but not dangerous.
W4xak
Nobody has a problem with people choosing not to swear, it's the swearing but censoring it that needs to frick off.
Typing a swear with letters substituded isn't choosing not to swear or to swear less, it's just swearing with the letters substituted.
If you don't want to swear or swear as much, don't type the words or type something else.
Doing that reeks of overexposure to underage communities.
It's fine. Just remove troops as HP drops.
You want a big attack like a greatsword or disintegration ray to potentially kill several guys by spilling overkill damage onto the next? We can do either way.
>my face when the GM follows rules that make the game playable
No it doesn't. It makes single targets damage overpowered because these rules forget to nerf it against these hordes so you get great cleave for free. It's just a mess of abstract bullshit that's more trouble than it's worth. Every time I see these rules used, it's a boring unsatisfying paper bag of an opponent that dies in 1 round to Uber optimized builds
Then stop being a minmaxing homosexual. Also frick off, TTRPG combat is already boring and tedious enough without it getting dragged across 10 sessions because the GM refuses to use something like horde rules.
>HAVE YOU TRIED
Yes, I have, and the one time this shit happened in that system I was about ready to fricking kill myself because it was 3 sessions of the most tedious bullshit imaginable. This is not a uniquely D&D problem like you contrarian subhumans try to make it out to be, mass combat in TTRPGs is boring as hell. No, having "additional options" doesn't help because at the end of the day it's still just some variation on "I hit it/I shoot it with a spell". I don't care if you also get to trip a foe, at the end of the day combat is just rolling random numbers and praying to the RNG gods that you roll hot enough - be it with dice and modifiers or pools with success ranges - to hit and kill the 60+ enemies in the encounter.
Combat is and always has been the worst part of TTRPGs, which is why TSR era games treated it as a failure state.
>TSR era games treated it as a failure state.
You are, at the oldest, 26 years old. You have never played old school D&D, at best reading blogs, /tg/ posts, and (least likely) the rulebooks. have a nice day.
>You are, at the oldest, 26 years old.
I turn 33 this year, homosexual.
>You have never played old school D&D
True, but I have read B/X and done my research on it.
>at best reading blogs, /tg/ posts, and (least likely) the rulebooks
If you're implying that thousands of people are all lying in the exact same way about the exact same thing then I'm going to call you a schizo, schizo.
>have a nice day
You first zoom-zoom.
Wrong, I run 3 games and play in 2. Got one more I'm about to be playing in here in a couple of weeks, another in a month or two, all with the same people. Take your projection elsewhere.
>So your DM is moronic
He's intelligent, TTRPG combat just sucks shit and mass combat more than most.
>talentless
I know for a fact man has more talent in his pinky than (you), nogames.
>inefficient
If you think TTRPGs are about efficiency then I've got some bad news for you buddy.
>The kind of idiot who resorts to these stupid options rules
The frick are you on about you moronic ESL?
>because Fatt Coville told him to.
I don't even know who that is but I'm assuming a youtuber or streamer, in which case I'm going to call you a homosexual for even knowing who that is and for using Youtube as a replacement for your own personality.
>True, but I have read B/X and done my research on it.
This is a lie. If you had read B/X, you'd have read literally any adventure and realized that combat is like 75% of the game.
t. Runs B/X
>t. never-game contrarian
Here is the (You) you are after
>Yes, I have, and the one time this shit happened in that system I was about ready to fricking kill myself because it was 3 sessions of the most tedious bullshit imaginable.
So your DM is moronic, talentless, and inefficient. The kind of idiot who resorts to these stupid options rules because Fatt Coville told him to.
>these rules forget to nerf it against these hordes so you get great cleave for free
uh huh
>fireball horde of 10 hit points guards
>they all die because fireball deals like 20 damage
>fireball ~~*troop*~~ of guards
>uhh lol they take 10 extra damage
have a nice day moron.
>throw fireball into the middle of a blob of trained soldiers
>bodies of the guys that get fried give cover to the other guys
alternatively
>soldiers in a setting where fire-breathing monsters, fire-balling mages, and siege weapons are all known to exist and reasonably likely to be a threat
>expecting them to have absolutely no training on how to handle the above in formation
>expecting them to have absolutely no training on how to handle the above in formation
So why don't trained level 4 fighters get that same benefit moron? Because they don't have formation training? Then why isn't that reflected in their stats at all? Just admit it's a dogshit abstraction technique meant for convenience for LAZY dungeon masters. I regular run combats with 20 or 30 participants. It's not hard. Mob rules are pointless
Did that manga ever get updated?
Nope. As far as I know it was dropped. Shame.
>my face when the GM follows SHIT rules
ftfy
HYTNPDND?
What system does mass combat without taking too long or abstracting the soldiers into nebulous values?
Warhammer is the only game I know where it goes over a dozen soldiers and doesn't abstract soldiers.
I'm gonna say gurps because our GM recently done just that and it wasn't a horrible slog.
>and it wasn't a horrible slog.
Which is probably the best thing one can say about GURPS.
GURPS is great, I dunno what's your problem. The character creation can take a while though.
>mass battle
>1 hit point pool for clusters of 20 enemies
sounds like you've never played a wargame
Also, that's precisely the rules for D&D as well (i.e. Chainmail)
If you're 5e-tiefling-gay, then you're not playing D&D.
You can try BattleSystem as an alternative, (or Swords & Spells) but I highly doubt you will.
On a rather liberal take, you can try Warhammer Fantasy 2e to set up your army and play it, if you want individual rolls separately for all of the combatants
But sticking to Chainmail will help you save time, as it is more suited to mass battle, and relatively short rules, suitable for larger battles.
Alternately, you can try DBA (or its fantasy adaptation, HOTT), Age of fantasy:regiments, Warmaster. You can also use Warriors of Mars rules by TSR.
You can also use BattleMaster rules for something simplistic.
>sounds like you've never played a wargame
I have played a wargame, jackass. I played Advanced Squad Leader with my dad all the time. I haven't directly played chainmail but I've used those rules with ODnD. Those rules are not good or satisfying for a DnD game.
>dude D&D came from wargames so,uh, like, it should totally use all the same rules
Are you a fricking moron?
Can you give the skinny on how mass combat works in Chainmail?
Rules walkthru: https://youtu.be/WADb7Vc0wAw?si=SPAOwpLCDrcNYceK
Another gameplay example: https://youtu.be/zwSxr-0MqXU?si=C-qytOJ1knIGPiAr
Thanks for the vids. I never was terribly into wargames, though as a personal preference I'm not terribly fond of switching systems for different situations, so I will just have to figure out how to adapt it.
BattleSystem 1e is fully compatible with Basic D&D, and AD&D (1e)
Chainmail is not just only compatible but required for Original D&D.
So, in those two options, you wouldn't need to change anything.
And, if you decide to play Warhammer Fantasy Battles 2e, you can always use the Warhammer Quest rules for dungeon delving and role-playing, as that games have rules for both, which uses the same rules with warhammer fantasy battles.
What's so great about mass battles?
Do you WANT to sit around forever doing nothing as the DM does the bookeeping for the battle?
Play ACKS. The man is the good kind of autist who managed to invent a wargame to go hand-in-hand with his RPG.
>DM does his darnest to make this clusterfrick work out
>moron homosexual wants to play 1 by 1
>Finally do mass combat in DND
>Literally not a single fricking thing any of the heroes do matters because 'There's 10,000 of these frickers'
>Might as well be a cut scene
Wow that's so much better isn't it?
do mass combat in DND
not a single fricking thing any of the heroes do matters because 'There's 10,000 of these frickers'
as well be a cut scene
>Wow that's so much better isn't it?
if you play games without moronic bounded accuracy where a bunch of cr 1/2 thugs can blender a dragon, and a hobgoblin and kraken have identical armor class, you can actually have mass combats where the actions of players matter and a single figure can turn the tide of battle.
Red Hand of Doom is almost 20 years old for crying out loud
nta but I like, in concept, for everything to matter. For things to not be completely beyond the others.
The soldiers, the knights, the cannons, the heroes, the monsters, the demons, all of it.
But that said, 5e doesn't do a good job at it. Probably not much you can do about it, really. I mean, take a hero that can take down 1 goon a turn. The goon deals 10 damage. With 1 goon the hero takes 10 damage, with 2 goons the hero takes 30 damage, 3 goons 60 and so on where the 6th goon personally deals as much damage as the first 3 goons combined and has collectively dealt 21x more damage with 6x as many goons.
Could do like Fire Emblem where you get free retaliatory attacks with characters switching between melee and ranged weapons as appropriate but that requires a lot of rolling by player on enemy turns and reverses the blender as enemies get cut down while the players sit there. But at least it would allow basic soldiers to fight a dragon without their numbers having such an exponential effect.
Anon, bounded accuracy has nothing to do with it. You're just spitting buzzwords. The thugs can "blender" a dragon in 5e because it doesn't have DR.
What's so great about mass battles?
Nothing, in most systems.
Its a bad idea. The best way to do armies clashing in a TTRPG is letting your players take part in a tiny very small but very important area of the overall battle. You can then narrate the situation of the larger battle to them in bits and pieces.
Yeah so its the end of the campaign, time for the epic conclusion, the final battle between the Warhost of the Dragon and the Eternal Horde, led by the Litch Deathfist. There's thousands of troops on each side at the foot of Mt Dread, but of course you guys still just control your players. At the moment you're... 22,489th on the initiative order. Ok so Drumgar swings his axe at Thratchloke the Goblin thief and... he misses. Ok so now the Doom Spider is going to lunge out with its web attack against Grigglepop AND Drunngle because they're within five feet... Uhh Drunngle avoids the attack so he's fine but Grigglepop is slowed until next turn... what... nah none of you guys are going to be attacked this turn because you're not in the front rank, maybe on turn 8 when the front ranks gets thinned out a bit you can move up. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Captain DickWizard is going to cast a spell... hmm which one... uhh hang on let me check...
Yeah, great stuff. is 100% correct. Give the players something to do, like blow up a bridge to stop reinforcements or stop some magic ritual that would doom their side or something, otherwise you're just expecting your players to sit there and watch you play with yourself. At the very least give them command over their own units and let them actually make tactical choices that determine the outcome of the battle.
>At the moment you're... 22,489th on the initiative order.
Nobody does this. Stop being moronic on purpose.
>not understanding exageration
Stop being moronic accidentally
Le epic cinematic battles
Any RPG with the expectation that mass combat can happen absolutely needs a system that can be easily slotted into the wargame. OD&D and ACKS being prime examples.
D&D is at its best when the expectation is that it becomes mount and blade after only a couple levels
>t. never played any of the games he listed
I understand the sentiment of "Going through a full scale conflict takes a long time and can get bland."
There are entire goddamn guide-books on how to make it work, but not everyone's going to do the research and watered-down fight rules expedite the process.
It is none the less disappointing to go from
>100 guys over there, wall of fire, RNG 30 saves, most fail, but there's clearly a high-tier dude who made it and jumps over it to show the Real fight you're up against.
to
>Roll 1d20+spell level vs a DC.
+1 or -1 success on a skill challenge count.
Or even
>Warrior in a fight
Yeah, full-attack spam can be bland, but I've had players who were plenty keen on being able to wreck through unfortunate conscripts with cleave-path feats like a Dynasty Warriors champ. Describing it on a single check rather than making the attacks hurries it along, but cheapens it, nevermind the lunatics who pull shit like the 20-Katanas per round throwing builds.
and the Tome of Battle/Path of War folks that are just as livid as the magic-users that they're getting 1d20+maneuver level instead of Desert Tempest taking out whole squads or Eternal Guardian single-handedly stalling a charge like it should because of a single low roll
I just think doing an opposed weapon test and a terrain one is all you need to play big battles
That or Conan 2d20 has some interesting mechanics to it (Mercenary book) that's where I got my idea
Having the PCs actually participate in a pitched, mass battle by engaging in combat like rank-and-file soldiers is asinine. They should be performing specialized tasks that can help affect the outcome of the mass battle - supply destruction / camp raid / equipment sabotage, targeting leadership / caster assassination / special unit destruction, so on.
What's the alternative? Actually throwing out hundreds of models to match the armies and trying to pretend to play a real game of DnD is wildly impractical and would take hours and hours to resolve a turn. So, your alternatives are to make a whole mass combat game from scratch, co-opt an existing mass combat game, or just play normal DnD where units of dudes are counted as one big monster (and then have to house-rule virtually all spell and ability interactions with that blob). Option three is clearly the easiest, and I've played games where treating masses of lesser enemies as a single entity is part of the core rules. Black Crusade does this for 40k playing as mixed CSM/human cultist parties. Blobs of lesser entities generally keep their defensive profiles, but gain bonuses to their offensive profiles scaled to current size (which will degrade as they take losses). Most rules either interact with the hordes as normal, or will have details on how to handle them with hordes. Trash tier opponents can be basically waded through like a terrain feature for CSM or durable cultists, so it allows for duels in the midst of the melee with superior opponents.
If you wanted to co-opt a mass combat game, BattleLore seems relatively easy to borrow the basic unit rules and have the players replace the whole card-game-command aspect. Either map the player abilities to the actual game cards and let them use them when able, or just adjudicate on the fly.
Bro I totally forgot about battlelore. Thank you for bringing back the memory of seeing it in the FLGS ten year ago.
I got a copy as a gift as a kid, but I only played it a handful of times. Everyone I knew that would like it already played 40k. I might have to try to engineer a mass battle scenario if I ever run DnD again.
Don't think of it like that many guards crammed into a X by X square. Think of it like a nucleus of guards fighting in that region as other guys are in a more diffuse spread around that area, as reinforcements or reserves or guys tending to a wound a street back or whatever. Think about it the way it would be in a movie. You'd just kinda have streams of guards running in and engaging the party in strangely isolated 1v1 or 1v2 struggles, with another guard always ready with a weapon to replace the last one to be dispatched. Alternatively, think about how fireball is always portrayed as working. The caster literally hurls or throws a ball of fire, that ball flies over to a point, and then explodes in fire. It's an explosion of fire. If there's other dudes in the way, it'll shield you from the explosion. Normal DnD rules don't have to account for this, since the standard use will only ever be against a handful of real opponents. If your explosion of fire hits the lead guy in a massed formation, sure, it vaporizes the lead guy and the next several guys behind and beside him, and horribly burns some more and mildly burns some more beyond that and scares the shit of some more behind that, but it doesn't magically phase into the theoretical optimal point for a fireball to explode and instantly microwave everybody within 20'.
It's no wonder when books like "the lazy dungeon master" get lauded left and right. They'll always use the most unfitting and unsatisfying mechanics if they can, instead of a subsystem the players might enjoy. Decent GMs/DMs are extinct.