longarms
July 20th, 2008, 06:10
Hey guys - I just wanted to point out that there is a "whispers from the pit" article #8 giving some optional rules for mass combats. See https://savagepedia.wikispaces.com/Whispers+from+the+Pit. We just tried a variant based on this article and I wanted to report our experiences.
The variant wasn't perfect, in fact there were definitely a few holes in the rules that we had to fill in. However, the best thing I can say about it is that it gives mass combat the potential to be on par with normal combat as far as fun, balance, and playability go.
Huge improvement over the mass combat rules in the core rulebook, which are not only boring, are really wacky as far as balance goes (parry, which is normally a very important value, is mysteriously not a factor in the core mass combat rules; PCs have little choice under the rules other than fighting/shooting, etc.)
A record of our mass combat is shown on the chat log... you can word search down to fortifications to read about it. See https://www.pisian.com/071908.html Note that we went with the "single blow per engagement" variant because it seemed more FFF than the full blown combat. Full blown combat could be better though, particularly if you adjusted this option so that the whole PC party could be involved together.
The variant wasn't perfect, in fact there were definitely a few holes in the rules that we had to fill in. However, the best thing I can say about it is that it gives mass combat the potential to be on par with normal combat as far as fun, balance, and playability go.
Huge improvement over the mass combat rules in the core rulebook, which are not only boring, are really wacky as far as balance goes (parry, which is normally a very important value, is mysteriously not a factor in the core mass combat rules; PCs have little choice under the rules other than fighting/shooting, etc.)
A record of our mass combat is shown on the chat log... you can word search down to fortifications to read about it. See https://www.pisian.com/071908.html Note that we went with the "single blow per engagement" variant because it seemed more FFF than the full blown combat. Full blown combat could be better though, particularly if you adjusted this option so that the whole PC party could be involved together.