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Fosco the Swift
2013-10-05, 08:08 AM
Ever since I read OotS and saw the idea that each minifigure was an army battlalion I wanted to build a game around that whole idea. So now I wish for your help to build a fun game that still has similarities to D&D, but includes a new since of tactical warefare- positioning, flank attacks, etc. I'm aiming at creating a fairly new system but ideas pulled out of similar game styles would be apreciated. So far...
-The HP system will be less "All or Nothing"- each battalion has three Health States (HS), Good, Average, Poor. There are seperate statistics for each HS, lower ones commonly having slower speed, less attack and damage, etc.
-There is a simple battle triangle that I want to improve on but currently is this: Swordsmen beat Spearmen, Spearmen beat Calvery, Calvery beat Swordsmen. I hope to add new groups to the triangle and to figure out what bonuses are gained for attacking a group you "beat".
New ideas and critiques?

Vadskye
2013-10-05, 11:39 AM
Are you familiar with wargames? If I remember my history correctly, what you are describing is where D&D came from. The innovation was in saying "Hey, what if each mini was a single person instead of a bunch of people?". So there's quite a bit of work done in this area already that you should research.

Amnoriath
2013-10-05, 12:06 PM
Ever since I read OotS and saw the idea that each minifigure was an army battlalion I wanted to build a game around that whole idea. So now I wish for your help to build a fun game that still has similarities to D&D, but includes a new since of tactical warefare- positioning, flank attacks, etc. I'm aiming at creating a fairly new system but ideas pulled out of similar game styles would be apreciated. So far...
-The HP system will be less "All or Nothing"- each battalion has three Health States (HS), Good, Average, Poor. There are seperate statistics for each HS, lower ones commonly having slower speed, less attack and damage, etc.
-There is a simple battle triangle that I want to improve on but currently is this: Swordsmen beat Spearmen, Spearmen beat Calvery, Calvery beat Swordsmen. I hope to add new groups to the triangle and to figure out what bonuses are gained for attacking a group you "beat".
New ideas and critiques?

While not entirely what you described this ought to help you in determing how to handle organized groups of soldiers at a time. It is called the Troop subtype just below the swarm subtype.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types#TOC-Swarm

urkthegurk
2013-10-05, 02:19 PM
I suggest two triangles:

Spears beat Swords, Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Spears. These are represented by small bonuses, and by other special abilities.

AND Calvery beat infantry, spears beat calvery. Calvery can be equpped with swords, axes, or 'lances' which count as spears for the purposes of attack bonuses, but do extra damage on a charge, rather than against a charge.

Spear infantry units have facing, so they can only effectively attack the front. They get a big AC bonus when in formation. Spear infantry can't run or charge and stay in formation, but they can still attack. Attacking the back or the side, especially the right side (soldiers carry their shields on the left) gets around this defense. Spear-using calvery can't use the defensive formation.

Swords have generally better stats than spears, and are more mobile. They deal more damage in a straight-up engagement.

Its more overlapping and less formulaic and clear-cut. You want axemen as shock troops, to break up a spear-line, but you would only want a couple of them. Similarly with swords, outfitting an entire army with swords is just a terrible idea. But you want plenty of them behind your pike-line, since they'll be more effective once the actual fighting starts.

Different specific units could have special abilities, like 'raging' or 'fearless' and so on.