What is the best way to implement a mass combat system in 5e (2014)? The campaign is already in progress so I can't use another system outright unless it is acting as a supplement. It's for a couple battles where units will be necessary. I also want some nuance that helps add some strategy like magic and flying units which would obviously affect combat.
>>98817972Don't! Have it offscreen, or just determine the outcome based on vibes. Don't attach an actual system to it.
>>98817972ACKS Domais at War: Battles if you want to use a hexmap, Hordes of the Things if you don't. You'll have to print unit counters for either.
>>98818003Ah, yes, just like the rest of D&D. Good call!
>>98818594Lol those are some of the worst rules I've ever seen. Just nonstop repetitive rules rules rules rules like the faggot is just trying to waste everyone's time as much as he can.Selling that kind of shit should be a crime.
>>98817972Get a Chainmail clone (I suggest The Old Lords of Wonder and Ruin) and use it, instead. It's literally designed for medieval battles happening around game-significant characters.Anything else is going to get get you into a neither-fish-nor-fowl situation.
>>98817972Hand wave the shit out of it. Make up some short descriptions of the units on both sides, have a map. Before the battle ask the players to make the battleplan for the units on their team. Add some arrows and coloured blocks so it feels 'strategic'. Figure out the basic logical follow through of their actions based on terrain an unit descriptions. Do the standard 3 act arc pasted over the battle, add in some background descriptions based on player battle plans so they feel like they did something, fudge as necessary. It'll have the same effect in much less time and be more engaging to your players than anything 5e is up to and you'll save a lot of hassle trying to make wargame rules work for a game that is antithetical to them.
>>98818594Fuck off, ACKShill.
>>988179725e doesn't have rules for it. The best you can do on the fly with minimal prep is do it like Suikoden: give the players a set of 3-5 units, each of which are super effective against one thing, super weak against another, and neutral against their mirror and the others. The players decide as a team which unit to deploy at which time. In the game world, before the actual combat, let them get information as treasure, stuff like:>Count Shagrath always holds his cavalry in reserve until the second half of the battle>Archers are hopeless against Lizardmen>War Elephants are terrified of ice magicetc.
>>98817972Don't. Instead ficus on the party doing a critical part of the battle like going over the wall and opening the gate. Or sneaking to the enemy lines to set a charge to break their degenses. Or hold a broken section off a fortress wall until reinforcements arrive. Whatever you choose, the party then falls back to recover while the army takes over. If they fail then they have to deal with the consequences, typically capture and escape.
>>98825918>>98820439The idea was the party would make a gameplan first which would then be acted upon by the army as they do their own thing. But how they sneak in/get past enemy ranks would be part of the war game strategy factor.
>>98828755have them create their plan, and implement it as background dressing. But what determines the battles success is the parties actions as a hero squad within the battle. If they can hunt down an enemy wizard cell and defeat them quickly enough the enemy army's loses some of its trump cards and your side is at an advantage. If they fail to find where the enemy general is commanding from, the enemy army surges ahead with some tactical wins. and so on. You don't need to actually roll out the armies fighting. Base victory or defeat on the success of the parties direct interventions during the battle. This should feel like a huge battle in which the party played a pivotal role but doesn't have undue mechanical overhead for you as DM.If the party tries to just tackle bulk infantry head on themselves, telegraph that doing so is going to get them bogged down fighting 150 mooks and they'll probably survive but the battle will be lost.
