Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Setokaiva Aug 14, 2015 20:41:04	(Sorry if I'm not posting this in the right thread... I kinda just arrived to these forums, and am still feeling the place out. Seems like a great site, though! ^^  I'll get around to making a proper introduction shortly, I just wanted to ask something.)   Has anyone ever played a campaign or experienced a scenario where the party gathering "troops" for a larger encounter than normal became a thing? Like, a dragon is amassing a horde of dark creatures (Orcs, Goblins, etc.) that is much more powerful than the heroes could reasonably defeat alone, so in order to carve a path to the leader they have to rally together an army of their own to oppose him? I'd really like to see something like that, to be honest. Epic last-battle army clashes are and shall forever be my eternal weakness.   Bonus points if this happens without it being a direct intention of the DM/GM, and instead a path the players chose on their own. xD   MEGA bonus points if riding your OWN dragon/enormous creature at the head of the army.   ~ Setokaiva
#2 ankiyavon Aug 14, 2015 21:02:25	Many times, yes.   Obviously, this is a normal feature when playing Birthright (in the AD&D setting Birthright, PCs are regents of countries, and a country with no army will rapidly be eaten up by aggressive NPC countries), but in general back in 2E, this was considered the end game.   Every high level character I played in 2E would gather an army, build a stronghold, and so on.
#3 arnwolf666 Aug 14, 2015 22:02:57	Also a big feature in BECMI.
#4 MonsterEnvy Aug 14, 2015 23:15:28	The DMG has stuff for this as well. I want my PC's to build a stronghold at some point when I run a game.
#5 shintashi Aug 15, 2015 0:07:46	I've actually done something like this i don't know how many times. In one of the 5e games i ran recently, the players allied themselves with a necromancer to take down a dragon, and there were probably about 20 humanoids facing against a Dragon and the various traps and minions in the lair. in theory we were a pretty large group doing the tiamat adventure too, up to 13 people at one time, possibly more counting thralls and servants, and countless background noise NPCs fighting other background noise badguy armies.   The real trick is to make sure players get experience points and treasures commiserate with the raw epicness and hours required to finish the scene. No one really wants to go into a massive draining thousand die roll battle and walk away with pocket change and 20 xp. Well, ok, there's people like that, but i don't know any in real life. Think carefully about how many XP and treasure or magic items the players might normally get in the same number of hours playing a regular campaign.    Now comes the hard part. When you have a massive battle, there's a lot of stuff happening, but quite often, the players are only a small part of that. Therefore, mechanically, they often only get a small portion of the reward. Especially if you have a lot of hirlings or multiple characters splitting the treasure or xp. Some newer styles don't divide things this way, but many styles still do.   worst case scenario example, you have like 100 NPCs and 4 PCs splitting say, 10,000 xp and 50,000 gp, and you end up with each PC getting like, 96 xp and 480 gp.   Trust me, not everyone will care, but i guarantee you many players will not be happy with a 4 hour high level battle yielding squat.
#6 Zardnaar Aug 15, 2015 0:45:57	In older editions yup. In BECMI we raised an ay and invaded Thyatis. In 2E the fighter parked his followers on an asteroid base. In another 2E game we had our own colony in fantasy Africa and the Druid had an army of battle elephants. The PCs personal battle elephant had magical barding usually got enlarged. His name was Clive.
#7 Brimleydower Aug 15, 2015 0:47:06	Been several years back, but I worked in a mass combat for some players in a Pathfinder game. The PCs weren't commanding the fight (that honor belonged to Gondegal, returned to Faerun) so much as they were acting as champions on the front lines. I actually ended up using L5R's Mass Combat rules to handle the battle itself. There were multiple engagement levels that inflicted damage proportional to the risk involved (Heavy being the most punishing) while also providing a chance (increased chance depending on your engagement level) for a significant action. A significant action would be something along the lines of getting a line on some of the enemy's siege weapons, catching some of their spellcasters/archers unawares, or being challenged to personal combat by an enemy champion. These sorts of things were played out like normal combat rounds, while the bulk of the fighting was more descriptive (comparing results between opposing forces to see who suffered more casualties in a given round, narrating the hows/whys of incoming damage to the players and the army around them).
#8 Ath-kethin Aug 15, 2015 4:44:01	One of the major ways earlier (pre-WotC) D&D balanced martial classes against casters was that around 9th or 10th level, everybody got followers. But whereas a wizard would get an apprentice or two, fighters literally got an army. If you can track down a 2nd Edition AD&D Player's Handbook, I see no reason why you couldn't port the rules and tables into 5e wholesale.
#9 Imaculata Aug 15, 2015 4:59:56	I'm about to have several armies clash in my campaign. My players are currently gathering a fleet of pirate vessels, to counter an approaching fleet of eastern pirate hunters. This will eventually end up in one massive naval battle.
#10 draegn Aug 15, 2015 10:14:03	shintashi wrote:
#11 edwin_su Aug 15, 2015 10:57:27	Last weekend we tested the mas combat rules : http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/unearthed-arcana-when-armies-clash
#12 scythebladex Aug 15, 2015 13:08:56	Basically what I did in one of their missions was that they gained the trust of a dwindled dwarf/warforged army after helping them defend their city from a far realm invasion. Now the party had info about a dragon attack they were preparing for in the human city to the south. So using that trust, and the situation in which the dwarves lost most of their commanders to the previous invasion (some were secretly intellect devourers in disguise), they convinced them to join them, and the dwarves gave them temporary command over their forces in the defense of the other city. Basically, I retooled the first hoard of the dragon queen mission of the city greenest dragon attack, using the unearthed arcana rules wizards provided for "When Armies Clash". It was alright, but I could tell the party enjoyed the up close and personal feel of small scale combat, so the next mission we just rolled a d100 to determine how the Armies were faring against each other while the party did their thing. Much more fun. It's not for everyone, but if they have the expectation going in, then it can be fun for certain gamers.
#13 jocanuck Aug 15, 2015 13:32:16	Yes many times in the past. I am currently using the above mentoned UA article to stage small battles between the PCs and thier enemies.