Mass Combat

[darkmaster]

So, I was reading though Franks Review of the 4e DMG 2 and I came across the argument over mass combat and how you can't make everyone happy. I can understand on principle why a lot of people would want to run pretend armies, Warhammer is still a thing (a thing that I've played and quite enjoyed, I like zombie robots) after all and all that is is controlling armies.

But I question if mass combat really fits in D&D. As the Tomes tell us D&D is more iron age than anything else. In the iron age war was less "trained units engaging each other" and more "single well trained and armed guys kills his way through crushing waves of peasants armed with sticks until they find the enemy's well trained and armed guy and they kill each other with extreme stabination." Kind of like this though your players had better be pretty high level if you throw a giant enemy crab at them.

So, the real question, I think, is not "how do we do mass combat?" but "does mass combat really fit in D&D?" I'd say a better way of handling large battles in D&D is by giving everyone a way to quickly mow through low level enemies so such battles don't feel like a massive grind. You can still raise armies, but they would largely be there as set pieces to weak and in effectual against people with real power to really matter in war. Which, honestly, really makes sense in the context of D&D's adventuerercentric social structure.

[TheFlatline]

Considering that the Battle of Thermopylae is still required study in modern military officer training and that was bronze age, along with pretty much the entirety of Alexander's campaigns... I'm going to say that historical justifications against mass combat being in D&D is pretty much bunk. Heck, bronze/iron age tactics form the backbone of one of the more popular wargames out there (command & colors Ancients).

So you have to address if mass combat belongs in D&D on it's own merits I think. And really, I don't see in a D&D economy where it's a fucking like level 1 clerical spell to create food and water why you *wouldn't* have mass combat. The biggest issue of armies historically were supply chains, fuck it's what defeated Napoleon in Russia 2000 years later. The ability to open portals and create food out of thin air pretty much eliminates supply lines and their vulnerability.

The biggest question is if mages are common enough to nuke 10,000 fighters on a regular basis. And if that's the case, there's enough mages to counter mages.

[BearsAreBrown]

To start, D&D does not have a consistent setting and avoiding a ruleset because it doesn't fit one aspect of one particular setting is dumb. What's even more spectacularly dumb is that mass combat IS HAPPENING in the settings. Seriously read the first page of any campaign setting book and it'll tell you about the great battles.

If you establish that mass combat is happening, then maybe it should be modeled? But baking happens in all settings, so does sex. We don't want those modeled with mechanics. But if enough people wanted it to be, if people wanted a resolution mechanic we would have one (e.g. BoEF). I would argue that enough people want mass combat mechanics to warrant some amount of time being spent on it. It's popular as fuck in settings and in pop culture. D&D isn't some holy thing, if people want mechanics they should exist.

[hyzmarca]

But I question if mass combat really fits in D&D. As the Tomes tell us D&D is more iron age than anything else. In the iron age war was less "trained units engaging each other" and more "single well trained and armed guys kills his way through crushing waves of peasants armed with sticks until they find the enemy's well trained and armed guy and they kill each other with extreme stabination."

The advantage that Iron had over bronze was that it was cheaper and easier to mass produce, thus you could more easily outfit armies.

In order to make bronze you need copper and tin. Tin was scarce in the Bronze age and some of the richest deposits were in Great Britain. You can understand that importing Tin from Great Britain is kind of expensive when the height of your transportation technology is the trireme.

Iron was more abundant and vastly easier to obtain once you know how to smelt it. That permitted vastly larger production runs of swords and armor. It also happened to be lighter, which made carrying it and using it much easier and allowed swords to be longer

[Wrathzog]

"does mass combat really fit in D&D?"

For a very limited time. You need to be able to make up for Power Disparity with Numbers and after level 9, that becomes impossible (probably even lower than that if you really looked into it) because you have Wizards who bypass the entire mass combat mini-game by teleporting 900 miles into the King's bedchambers

So, Mass Combat can only exist between two political powers that don't have access to level 9+ wizards and it'll look extremely similar to how you described it (Dynasty Warriors, essentially).

[shadzar]

But I question if mass combat really fits in D&D.

it doesn't. nor does aerial combat, ship combat, etc. the main system in every edition of D&D is set that a few people are fighting a few people. each PC is a mob, to use the term. but it isnt a 'mob' as in group. the only way to do mass combat would be to have some preformed group, but then you lose the PC in that and might as well be playing Warhammer with its movement trays, or 40k with its cohesion rules. then the only "special" character is the Special Characters. those which are so above and beyond everyone else it makes no sense why they would even be in the battle, and going BACK to armchair general.

if your PC dies as part of a "mob", how do you come out of the mass combat and continue playing? why is your PC running in a group of dirt farmers with pitchforks?

this is why BATTLE System was compatible with AD&D since it used similar iconic things, but really is its own game, same as Chanmail which came out again and failed, then followed by DDM.

to borrow from Frank Mentzer and Mike Mearls in regards to Immortals and EPIC Tier/Level... it really becomes a new game and you have to start over with different character design to even do things like fight Orcus/Jubilex/Asmodeus. the system that allows you to play as a level 1 PC, doesnt work for either mass combat like the battle of 5 armies from Hobbit/LotR, nor to god-slaying characters.

[Bihlbo]

There are settings and campaigns where mass combat does fit and needs to be handled somehow, but that really has nothing to do with D&D. The same could be said for gambling with cards - sometimes it fits the game you're playing but it doesn't need to interact with the rules. Handwave the thing as a couple of die rolls or get out a deck of cards and play cards.

D&D has a scope, and its rules are for handling that scope of play. If you deviate from that scope, you're deviating from D&D. That's totally fine, and sometimes a great way to keep a game fresh, but it's a different set of rules to play a different kind of game.

I've seen it handled a lot of ways, and some were great.

• Roleplay the characters planning things out, then zoom in on various small-scale fights using the NPCs that the PCs sent out to do war. The "mass" part of it happens off-screen, but the outcome depends largely on the focused-on fights. The PCs don't need to be a part of the focused-on fights, but they can be.
• Get out a board game made to model mass combat and just play that thing. Tweak little things so the players know that what's happening is an abstract model of something way too complex to detail, but it's all happening in-game.
• Play the Special Forces group that handles the big baddies and the difficult small-scale fights for territory or powerful resources. The actual battle either results in a success, an arbitrary plot direction the DM likes best, or the PCs die and the outcome no longer matters. Shoot, it's the most common way to portray war in any work of fiction.
• Pick up one of the plethora of resources available that attempt to shoehorn mass combat into a game that doesn't function on that level at all. I think this option is stupid, but I've seen it done and seen people have fun doing it, so whatever.

My answer is no, mass combat doesn't fit in D&D. But mass combat fits in stories you tell using D&D. This doesn't mean you need to give players control over the battle at all, and whether you do or not depends on what the players like and on how much work you want to put into setting up one of the many ways to do it.

My preference (not that it matters) in any roleplaying game using any set of rules is to play a character, not a platoon. I don't think the game stays fun if you wade into battle and fight an endless swath of enemies while surrounded by your allies, because that is really cumbersome and difficult to do, so I wouldn't want to do that. I'd want to just not be involved in the war. Maybe my character is above it, maybe I have other ways to contribute than by being an infantryman, maybe I'd rather just have as much knowledge about my character's role in the battle as I do about Elvis's time as a soldier (I know it happened and the historical events surrounding the war, and that's good enough). Mass combat doesn't involve roleplaying, so if I come to RP it holds no interest for me.

[Wiseman]

Roleplay the characters planning things out, then zoom in on various small-scale fights using the NPCs that the PCs sent out to do war. The "mass" part of it happens off-screen, but the outcome depends largely on the focused-on fights. The PCs don't need to be a part of the focused-on fights, but they can be.

So does a method where the PC's participate in a battle and fight a group of opponents themselves, while a larger fight is going on the in the background with the rest of the armies fit in with this one?

[darkmaster]

The dynasty warriors approach yes. In fact, I think if I was going to put nation building into D&D it would probably look a lot like Dynasty warriors empires.

[Bihlbo]

Roleplay the characters planning things out, then zoom in on various small-scale fights using the NPCs that the PCs sent out to do war. The "mass" part of it happens off-screen, but the outcome depends largely on the focused-on fights. The PCs don't need to be a part of the focused-on fights, but they can be.

So does a method where the PC's participate in a battle and fight a group of opponents themselves, while a larger fight is going on the in the background with the rest of the armies fit in with this one?

Yes, but there are good and bad ways to do this.

Bad Way
GM: "You arrive at the battle of Stingsha, what do you do?"
Me: "We are all mounted, so I say we join the cavalry to flank the invaders."
GM: "Okay, here are 9 enemy soldiers to fight. You have 2 NPC allies helping you, but across the battlefield other skirmishes like this are taking place."

Good Way
GM: "Your armies are going to battle, what do you do?"
Us: "Well, let's take a look at the battlefield. Can we lay traps? Where are the choke points? Let's direct the battle into the ruins of this town. Our demon lover can summon us a balrog and sit the thing in this barn, then cast an illusion to make the barn look like it's whole, hiding the balrog. We'll get a hole dug here and put a troll inside, with archers flanking the hole - when the enemy tries to pull out their allies we ambush. The bulk of our infantry can be in foxholes and our cavalry can flank the battle once the ruined village is mostly filled with enemies."
GM: "Okay that's one scene with a balrog, one scene with a hole troll and his archer buddies, one scene with the cavalry flanking to take out the general... and I think we can let infantry fight infantry off-screen. Do any of you want to involve your characters directly in these scenes or do you want to play the NPCs on your side?"
DL: "I'll play my Balrog!"
FG: "I'd love to join that fight."
Elf: "I'll train with the archers and set them up, then pull back as a reserve. Can I control the archers?" (yup)
Me: "The hole troll plan could fall apart if we don't ensure the trap consumes some of their important troops. I'll try to lead them into it."

Then you use D&D to play through part of the army being roasted by the Demon Lover's balrog while the Fighting Guy wades through mooks. You switch over to the rogue leading a platoon down a wide street, running right over the trapped hole, and the ambush that results. When those are resolved, switch to the knights attacking the general and his retinue. It's likely that one of these skirmishes is going to result in the players' side retreating, but if more than one do then the battle as a whole is not looking good.

Then again, doing it the "bad way" might be for the best if the PCs don't care very much about the outcome and there's no reason to involve them in the war beyond one little fight. The "good way" assumes that the players care enough about the battle that mass combat was considered in the first place.

[K]

If you've decided that DnD is a competitive strategy game, then Mass Combat basically needs an entire mini-game and then mass combat stuff needs to be bolted onto classes that don't have it natively (like most spellcasters).

As a strategy game, it can get as complex as you want and can diverge from DnD core assumptions as much as you want. There really is room for minutiae like skeletons who resist archers and complex tactics and counter-tactics systems where single battles can be the whole of a single session.

If you play DnD as a storytelling game, Mass Combat needs to be abstracted heavily. Maybe you assign various troops a flat combat value and then create a framework for mini-adventures that can be played during battles. Armies of certain size and power then become ways to open up different adventure choices in the same way that teleporting or water breathing opens up adventure options.

[OgreBattle]

The dynasty warriors approach yes. In fact, I think if I was going to put nation building into D&D it would probably look a lot like Dynasty warriors empires.

If they ever want to sell D&D in China, there's your scenario

[Wrathzog]

GM: "Your armies are going to battle, what do you do?"

So this is how that would actually go down:

DL: I summon my Balor and tell him to Greater Teleport into the enemy General's Tent and kill everyone and then I tell him to Greater Teleport into the enemy Ruler's castle and kill him too.

Armies do not exist solely for people to throw them against each other. Armies exist because they are a Political Tool used to Force your neighbors to do what you want them to. If you can SUMMON BALORS, then you don't actually need an Army.

[ishy]

But what happens when you have an army of Balors?

[Wrathzog]

Whatever you want, probably.

[Chamomile]

The post said Balrog, not Balor. Balrogs don't teleport. In any case, if one side has Balors, it's not at all unreasonable to assume the other side has some method of either preventing them from reaching the ruler's castle or else killing them immediately upon arrival.

[Wrathzog]

We're talking about Mass Combat in D&D.
Balrogs don't exist in D&D but Balors, which are based on Balrogs, do.
Are you caught up yet?

And seriously, any kingdom that has the power to not only stop Balors from teleporting into the castle, but kill them "immediately upon arrival" is going to have the ability to teleport some seriously nasty shit into your castle as a response.
They're not going to wait to mobilize an army and then march however hundreds of miles to go knock on your doorstep. They're going to get a Wizard, travel that entire distance in six seconds with their strongest dudes, and they're going to Force an end to the war by fucking your shit up in your own home.

Disclaimer: When I refer to D&D, I'm refering to 3E. 4E is already a Tactical Wargame, so introducing Mass Combat is simply a matter of increasing scale.
Other Disclaimer: D&D is Dumb.

[Chamomile]

We're talking about Mass Combat in D&D.
Balrogs don't exist in D&D

Because? They're an eighteen foot tall demon that murder enemies in melee. That is totally a thing that can happen in D&D and is totally consistent with what Bihlbo actually posted. Yes, you can make someone's post seem nonsensical by rewriting key words. If I replace the word "Balor" in either of your posts with "rubber ducky" it will seem very dumb. So what?

Regardless, the rest of your post has a rebuttal so incredibly straightforward that I'm amazed I have to point it out: What if both sides had teleport-proof castles? See, then you'd have to attack from outside, and then you would have a mass combat outside the castle. Or perhaps because the fortified locations are too difficult to penetrate, they instead fight one another for valuable resources directly. These resources are going to be crazy planar stuff rather than, like, salt mines, but so what? Still happens.

Even the lowest-level infantry have a place in high-level mass battles, because stuff trickles down. A Balor does not care about any number of Orcs, but he does care if there's a squad of enemy Mariliths on the other side. A Marilith also does not care about any number of Orcs, but she does care if there's a bunch of enemy Storm Giants on the other side. A Storm Giant does not care about any number of Orcs, but he does care if there's a bunch of enemy Mind Flayers on the other side. A Mind Flayer does not care about any number of Orcs, but he does care if there are a pack of Bearded Devils on the other side. A Bearded Devil doesn't need to be concerned about Orcs unless there are an extremely large number of them, but even fairly small amounts of Ogres would be a threat. And an Ogre totally does have to worry about a bunch of enemy Orcs. So if you bring your Balor and his Mariliths to a fight alone because you don't need to worry about Storm Giants since you have a Balor, the Storm Giants and Mariliths will gank your Mariliths, and then the survivors will team up with the enemy Balor to gank your Balor.

[Wrathzog]

I tried to ignore that you made a serious argument that Replacing Balrog with Balor is somehow comparable to replacing either of those words with Rubber Ducky and it is impossible. Every time I make a serious attempt at responding to you, I end up coming back to that and it blows my mind all over again.

... So if you bring your Balor and his Mariliths to a fight alone because you don't need to worry about Storm Giants since you have a Balor, the Storm Giants and Mariliths will gank your Mariliths, and then the survivors will team up with the enemy Balor to gank your Balor.

Seriously
[I don't know WHAT the fuck is going on.jpg]

[rampaging-poet]

The point is that military units are not entirely irrelevant. Having a horde of orcs and a balor is better than just having a balor even though the orcs cannot personally threaten a balor because they can contribute in other ways or wear down enemy resources to give your balor a better chance against enemies that can personally threaten him.

[ishy]

I am not sure. A horde of orcs sound irrelevant, they are pretty likely to die to area attacks real monsters would have done anyway, without accomplishing anything you care about.
Or just get told to fuck off with frightful presence / other are you tall enough to ride abilities.

[tussock]

It was pointed out to me elsewhere that one reason to still have castles and city walls after level ... well, level 1 really ... is that it keeps out the orc hordes, and gives your civilians 1st level commoners (who grow all the fucking food and basically do all the work on everything) a place to run to when things turn to shit.

So something the orc horde can do is split up and march through your villages at night killing, burning, and raping, probably in that order on account of the stupid. They don't have to attack the high level PCs or enter any "you must be level 7" areas to cause very real problems.

Yes, PCs can head out and curb stomp them at quite disturbing rates, once they've dealt with the Balor and all, but it's probably still increased the "cost" to the defenders. Less food, less taxes for the army, less labourers, and less people wanting to live there and contribute in future.

[fectin]

One of the things I liked about Exalted's combat system was that armies essentially became equipment. You wore your army like pants, and it gave you bonuses and ablative armor. You also had slots for special characters based on army size (which mostly boiled down to "keep other PCs safe" or "allow even biggerer army").
The best part was that it basically used the same combat system (I think the only change was equivalent to "each mass-combat round takes one minute instead of six seconds"), with a bolted-on morale system.

[Wrathzog]

So something the orc horde can do is split up and march through your villages at night killing, burning, and raping, probably in that order on account of the stupid. They don't have to attack the high level PCs or enter any "you must be level 7" areas to cause very real problems.

No, it seriously doesn't matter. An Orc Horde is completely inconsequential in a High Level War. While that Horde is just starting to mobilize, the actual participants in the war have already Teleported to any strategically valuable locations, and resolved whatever Combats they need to get out of the way.

It happens within minutes and the orcs haven't even packed their tents up yet. Anything without teleportation capabilities is too slow to matter.

[Sigil]

I'd say the real use of orc hordes (and similarly powered units of fighting men) is not to directly cost your opponents any real short term power, but to cause opportunity costs. Yes, it's relatively easy for you to stop the orc hordes, but it takes time that you could be using to do something more productive, and if you don't take the time to solve that problem it has a real effect on morale, and presumably your fighting to save those peasants. And presumably, being the good guys, you want to save the people, and if you fail to save those people you've failed at one of your main objectives.

You could even explain this as one of the reasons armies of devils and demons are so dangerous. Demons and devils don't have peasants to protect, the resources they are defending are on another plane and defended by powerful creatures, and those demons are potentially actually catching the souls of the peasants they kill and sending them back tothe abyss to be processed into more low-level demons to fuel more war efforts.

This is not a traditional medieval method of warfare, but could be a valid one using in-universe justifications.