There are innumerable ways to do mass combat in D&D (I even tried to write my own).
In old school editions, however, I am not sure it is even necessary to have a mass combat system.
On the contrary, I've been thinking a separate mass combat system might become a problem.
Take Chainmail, for example. Many people that play OD&D or AD&D like the idea of using CM for mass battlers, but I find this a bad idea.
In Chainmail, the mace is FIVE TIMES better than a regular sword against AC 2. In AD&D, since you can hit even negative AC with a 20, the mace is only slightly better than a sword.
This is the first thing that comes to mind, but there are many other differences - IIRC, a 4th-level fighter is much stronger in CM, for example, and using 2d6 will necessarily produce different results from a d20.
My problem with this is that switching systems like that changes the assumptions about the game, to the point of changing the results of a fight depending oh the system you're using.
But what if you just use the same system with a different scale?
For example, say 100 knights are battling 150 berserkers. You could just run 10 knight "units" against 15 berserkers "units", as if they were individuals, and assume the results would be similar.
I.e., a "10:1 scale"; one knight represents 10.
The rules would be exactly the same... with a few exceptions.
Morale
An unit tests morale upon losing one HP and again when losing half HP.
Notice that usually morale is checked when one combatant dies. If taken literally, this would indicate hat an army of 100 might flee is attacked by an army of 100 inflicting a single causality. I dislike that, and I only check morale when 10% of an army/unit is lost.
Interaction between scales
What happens when a unit of 10 knights attacks an ogre or even an exceptional PC?
Reverting back to the usual system is not a bad idea - it is easy enough to roll 10d20, etc.
Although I do think you should decide beforehand how many people can attack a single target at once (I like four, maybe twice as much for spears).
Likewise, the number of units attacking other units is limited and depends on geography.
When combat is resolved (because the ogre is slain or inflicts a causality and the knights fail a morale test), you can stay in 10:1 or 1:1 scale as appropriate.
Other scales/my experiences with mass battles
Of course, you can use other scales as appropriate. You could use 5:1, 100:1 or 1,000:1... The idea is finding a number of units that makes you comfortable.
I have little experience running mass battles like that. But my PCs recently fought about 50 goblins in two or three waves, with the help of half a dozen NPCs, and it went very well.
I once ran a 5e combat against 100 skeletons or so, which was also very easy as they came in groups of 4-5 thru the windows and the fighters would only miss them on natural 1s.
I think it would be hard to run more than 10 or 20 units at once, but within that limit I'd want to have as many unis as possible.
In addition, I'd have to consider unit types; if I have 1000 identical knights, I can use 100:1, but if I also had 50 archers, I'd definitely prefer 50:1.
In any case, you can "zoom" back and forth as needed.
Well, for now, this is just brainstorming. Let's see if I can out it in practice.
"Notice that usually morale is checked when one combatant dies. If taken literally, this would indicate hat an army of 100 might flee is attacked by an army of 100 inflicting a single causality. I dislike that, and I only check morale when 10% of an army/unit is lost."
ReplyDeletePlaying devil's advocate, it isn't actually too unrealistic for that to happen — or even for a battle to be lost before any casualties whatsoever.
The average rate of casualty of winning armies in premodern battles tends to fall somewhere around 5%, by which it's implied that total casualties in the line of battle also come in somewhere around 5% for the losing side.
Total casualties for losing armies often fall in the 15 - 30% range, but it's generally assumed that a supermajority of these happen while the army is routing, not when they're actually fighting — the constituent warriors naturally being most vulnerable and appealing as targets when deprived of support and with their backs turned.
But the above are of course averages. There are plenty of examples (the ones I recall are mostly from the Romans and Peloponnese, but there are doubtless others) of armies being sufficiently intimidated by the advance or initial charge of their enemies that they fled immediately without putting up a fight, and there are also, more famously, times when forces have suffered very high or even near-100% casualties (though those don't tend to come from anything short of there being nowhere to escape).
If I was trying to account for that, I'd probably have morale checks whenever two forces met, and whenever one of them took damage thereafter.
"Although I do think you should decide beforehand how many people can attack a single target at once (I like four, maybe twice as much for spears)."
Oh, and on a random fun note, there's this bit in Polybius where he's trying to come up with an explanation for why the Romans of his time were wrecking everyone else so badly. He makes mention of how each front-line Roman in a legion fighting a Hellenistic pike phalanx would be facing up against ten spears, since the Greeks spaced themselves twice as densely and their pikes were long enough that five rows of them projected forwards from the line.
Well, there is a lot to unpack here.
DeleteFirst, we usually assume that 0 HP means death.
In reality I'd guess many combatants would become wounded/unconscious but still salvageable. This probably requires some "save versus death" after a soldier is reduced to 0 HP, especially if their side wins.
I like my 10% rule but 5% sounds good too. 1% is too little IMO - and army of 100 trained soldiers suffering a single killing blow should have at least a better chance of fighting on than two bandits after their third companion is dead.
There is a nuance problem here: the second check it at 50% deaths. So our 100-soldier army, having endured the loss of one, would simply ignore the loss of 30 in the next round. feels strange.
A morale check when fighting a significantly greater army, BEFORE combat, is not a bad idea at all!
Interesting bit about the Romans and Greeks! It is no wonder that long spears rule the battlefield. I wonder if maces and axes should get a small boost in some way too.
Or you could just treat all of a leader's followers as buffs on them.
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