Good Mass Combat System?

[Doswelk]

Yes the Mass battle rules in the SWEX book are deadly but then in a battle with hundreds if not thousands of people fighting I think it's not unlikely that a hero would be killed!

Kalan was right to point out Showdown this may be less lethal for your PCs...

[borusa32]

I have successfully used GURPS mass combat in a fantasy game with character integration in the past.
Savage Worlds has an add on.
Although many years out of print War Law was a good wargame add on fopr Rolemaster and I still drag it out and use it.
On the PC front UMS can be found for download.

Peter

[TheMetal1]

Here are a couple of options for you Bookwise

1. AEG's War (for 3.X)
2. WOTC's Heroes of Battle (for 3.5)
3. Troll Lord Games Fields of Battle for Castles & Crusades (not out yet, but coming shortly - boxed set)
4. WOTC's Miniatures Handbook (for 3.5)
5. Mythic Vista's Testament RPG in the Biblical Era

Another option is go the miniature route for your game.

Field of Glory - miniature game is a great way of doing it. Since they've gone digital as well with turn by turn, in PvP mode this might work for you all.

[bigbsonnier]

I found an awesome post that really discusses the problem with mass combat and offers a hell of a solution.

https://trollitc.com/2010/09/mass-co...ons-as-swarms/

and the follow up article

https://trollitc.com/2010/09/mass-co...-war-at-large/

I forget if its covered in the article, but i read somewhere else another idea that really ties in with 4E, being swarms can be moved through if a hero character (i.e. pc's and particular npc's, good or bad) is in the swarm unit or i would even say 1 to 5 squares from it ( your character leading the charge dives into the enemy units and then falls back or something) give a bonus to the swarm. Defender: +1/5lvls defenses, Striker: +1/5lvls damage, Leader: +(?1%?)/5lvls hitpoints, Controller: +1/5lvls attack .

Was part of an "epic battle" encounter one time and it was fun but ground down way too much for it to be repeated. took some crafty use of earth to mud and mud to earth scrolls to take out a couple of hill giants that were clearly beyond our level at the time (once trapped we stood at distance and balisted them death, he he). our dm was dumbfounded and never let us choose x number of scrolls at x lvl before certain big battles ever agian. It was a riot though.

[Ictinike]

I found an awesome post that really discusses the problem with mass combat and offers a hell of a solution.

https://trollitc.com/2010/09/mass-co...ons-as-swarms/

and the follow up article

https://trollitc.com/2010/09/mass-co...-war-at-large/

I forget if its covered in the article, but i read somewhere else another idea that really ties in with 4E, being swarms can be moved through if a hero character (i.e. pc's and particular npc's, good or bad) is in the swarm unit or i would even say 1 to 5 squares from it ( your character leading the charge dives into the enemy units and then falls back or something) give a bonus to the swarm. Defender: +1/5lvls defenses, Striker: +1/5lvls damage, Leader: +(?1%?)/5lvls hitpoints, Controller: +1/5lvls attack .

Was part of an "epic battle" encounter one time and it was fun but ground down way too much for it to be repeated. took some crafty use of earth to mud and mud to earth scrolls to take out a couple of hill giants that were clearly beyond our level at the time (once trapped we stood at distance and balisted them death, he he). our dm was dumbfounded and never let us choose x number of scrolls at x lvl before certain big battles ever agian. It was a riot though.

Those are great articles!

Thanks for those and some great ideas come to mind, lol

[demonsbane]

Not sure if this is the sort of thing you are chasing but SJG has mass combat rules for GURPS available for download at e23.

https://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-0131

Also, recently SJG released Mass Combat in PoD (Printed on Demand) physical format. I'ts available at Warehouse23 and through other sites like amazon.com and some local stores:

https://www.warehouse23.com/item.html?id=SJG01-6197

It's not clear from this whether you've read the GURPS 4e Mass Combat rules, but if not I'd second this. The rules are elegant and adaptable, and built around the idea of the PCs being part of the action. You could still run the game using a different rule system if something else was better suited to the story, and just assign the relevant GURPS skills to your characters just for the purposes of the Mass Combat resolution.

I want to second these comments. The way of making the PCs part of the action is great and David Pulver is following the fourth edition streamlined approach for rules design, like he did in the Basic Set and in the GURPS Spaceships sub-line.

And there is an interesting Pyramid magazine issue devoted to Mass Combat from a fantasy angle -featuring different kinds of crunchy and fluffy articles: Pyramid #3/04: Magic on the Battlefield.

[vodokar]

I've tried the Savage Worlds version for Mass Combat a couple of times. It is pretty good. I only had one gripe with it.

It gave high toughness characters an advantage in the system, which is good. It did not take into account the benefit of extra agility for high agility style characters, however.

I was playing a character at the time that was specced like a high agility striker rogue type that wore no armor, but in individual combat is tough to lay a hand on.

I really got the short end of the stick under the mass combat rules.

[phantomwhale]

Battlesystem used to be great for AD&D mass combats. Not a "simple" system though, but much simpler than proper wargames, and most of the complexity was blending the character powers into the mass battle ruleset.

Pendragon also had quite a nice system where you have "the battle" with morale and how it's going, and characters using leadership like skills to win "the battle", but then I think you had individual fights hero-on-hero which could help swing the battle, or maybe the fights were tougher when the battle was going badly... in a nutshell, you could win by having high battle skill or high personal combat skills, but it was easiest with a sprinkling of both !

I only played in the Pendragon game though, so less sure about that.

[demonsbane]

Battlesystem used to be great for AD&D mass combats. Not a "simple" system though, but much simpler than proper wargames, and most of the complexity was blending the character powers into the mass battle ruleset. (. . .)

Ah, I remember that book, it was good. I think that miniatures were needed to play with that system.