Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 DragonsWrath Dec 21, 2008 18:27:16	I'm thinking of running a campaign after Christmas, and I'd like to eventually lead up to a big sweeping battle. I'm just tossing out ideas for now, but I was wondering how anyone would run a large (+100 monster) army? The idea is to have lots of identical monsters, and do all their turns en-masse My idea was to toss together a program on my calculator that would roll X d20, add a modifier, and display the result. Input: X = 60 D = 20 M = 6 Result (assuming statistical average of 3 per die # as an example) [1 is always a miss, it's left out] 7: 3 8: 3 9: 3 10: 3 ... 25: 3 CC: 3 H: 54 (54 hits) C: 3 (3 critical hits) Assuming this is massed archer fire, I would then start with the farthest character on the left, and have the first number (7) target his AC. After the first (lowest) number is used up, the next number would be 8, then 9, an so on. Eventually things would start hitting, and I'd have to calculate damage... Show
#2 Lazulli Dec 21, 2008 20:22:37	If I'm doing a mass-battle with thousands of combatants a side, I will use a system like the mass battle thing in L5R or AEG's WAR book, just adapted for 4e. (I've done this in a 3e campaign and it does work, though you have to put some effort into it). If it's only a hundred or so combatants, then I restrict the action to what is only immediately before the PCs. For everyone else I just go "well this round, x many fall on the one side and x many fall on the other". Rolling for NPCs fighting NPCs on that scale is just pointless, somewhat boring, and really slows things down.
#3 angelofthenight Dec 21, 2008 21:28:36	I believe in an old 2E adventure, a thousand plus kobold archers were firing on the heroes. The book just ruled 20d6 points of arrow damage per turn. no save.
#4 DragonsWrath Dec 21, 2008 22:04:04	If I'm doing a mass-battle with thousands of combatants a side, I will use a system like the mass battle thing in L5R or AEG's WAR book, just adapted for 4e. (I've done this in a 3e campaign and it does work, though you have to put some effort into it). If it's only a hundred or so combatants, then I restrict the action to what is only immediately before the PCs. For everyone else I just go "well this round, x many fall on the one side and x many fall on the other". Rolling for NPCs fighting NPCs on that scale is just pointless, somewhat boring, and really slows things down. The PCs are basically the only ones fighting on their side. They will be defending a fortified wall, and are supposed to kill the laddermen and archers before getting swarmed. I figure most of the archers and random sword-users will be powered up minions, to keep things actually manageable from an HP standpoint, but the brutes and other units would actually be tough monsters. I figure they could try taking out all the minions with AoE effects, then try to defend the big guys, or try to take out the big guys and save the minions for later. If they do this, they will probably get swarmed, but only by goblins. With that in mind, I'm just thinking of how to coordinate all that archer fire over a wide stretch of wall.
#5 Lazulli Dec 21, 2008 22:10:04	Make the enemy archer fire an Area of Effect attack to represent the "hail of arrows" effect (or a couple of them) rather than rolling for each individual arrow. If the PCs make an attempt to take out some of the archers, reduce the damage of the hail of arrows AoE. That kinda thing should ensure things don't slow down. Then the actual encounter can be between the PCs and those trying to scale the walls.
#6 DragonsWrath Dec 21, 2008 23:23:07	Make the enemy archer fire an Area of Effect attack to represent the "hail of arrows" effect (or a couple of them) rather than rolling for each individual arrow. If the PCs make an attempt to take out some of the archers, reduce the damage of the hail of arrows AoE. That kinda thing should ensure things don't slow down. Then the actual encounter can be between the PCs and those trying to scale the walls. Sounds reasonable... So each group of archers (9 or so?) would fire an AoE of some sort... They could get a +1 or +2 to hit for each archer, and a +1 to damage for each archer. Then, as groups get killed off, they can re-group to get some benefit to hit and damage... I like the sound of that. It keeps some tactical benefits without bogging everything down. ;)