Large(r) Scale Battle

[LuccMa]

Hey guys!

I've been looking for good rules to run a large scale battle in 5e for about 2 years now and didnt find something i was pleased with so i gave up. Trying again now.

Now i am NOT talking about the clash of two (or more) full grown armies. Battling kingdoms throwing thousands of soldiers, mages and magical beasts at one another with the PCs in the mix? You should find a "special ops" mission for the PCs or use actual army rules (Followers & Strongholds, Pathfinder, UA, etc.) and either one will probably be fine.

If you are running a combat against a large number of weaker foes, like an orc raiding party against lvl 10 PCs, you can mush the orcs together into a swarm. Ken_the_DM postet an overview of that here if someone is interested. Adding up the stats of weak monsters like orcs is fine - they got no HP and are offensive creatures.

What i struggle with are larger battles than the orc raiding party vs. PCs but way smaller than two clashing armies. For example: Side 1 contains 4 PCs, a group of 30 soldiers and 20 orcs. Side 2 contains of a Horned Devil commanding a bunch of bearded devils, spined devils and some mantikores, plus a second orc army worshipping said devil.

Option 1: You convert the groups into small armies and whip out some of the above mentioned rules and find roles for the PCs to play. I dont like that option because in my experience it just doesnt feel epic. The players built their characters over a large amount of sessions and shouldnt be reduced to something else, once they are part of a larger battle. Feels wrong in my mind. Now i know that isnt what the 5e character rules intended - that's why i am looking for a way to bend things around.

Option 2: You just add up all the creatures into swarms. That pile of hit points is way too f-ing large to get through and it becomes an incredible slugfest and everyone is bored. That doesnt feel epic either.

Because of that my goal is to:
- Convert each group into one Swarm Monster -> Minimize rolls & book keeping.
- Modify those swarms so the combat is still basic 5e combat but doesnt become a boring slugfest.
- Enable PCs to play through an epic battle. 30 Bearded Devil would be ECR 25 and a deadly challenge for 20th Level Characters - 4 10th Level PCs wouldn't stand a chance. But having such an encounter, together with named allies, can be a great and awesome moment in a campaign.
- The Horned Devil & the worshipping Orc Warchief remain regular Monsters. As do the PCs, ofc - that would result in about 10 "Monsters" which is ok for the above example.

I have played around with different numbers.
- Adding up the HP of all the monsters, dividing them by 2 (examples) or 4.
- Giving each group 4 attacks with +2 to hit - that is an acceptable amount of rolls for one swarm, i feel. But you cant just divide the added up average damage of 30 attacks and divide that by 4 - PCs would get one-shot and it would be WAY too swingy. So i tried the double average amount for 1-attack monsters (per 1 of the 4 attacks) and doubling that again for multiattack monsters.
- Those 4 attacks would get cut down by 1 every 1/4 health of the swarm.
- "Normal" Swarm Rules apply. Vulnerability to area damage, resistance against single-target CC and the like.
- Since 30 medium creatures can't gang up on 1 PC, every swarm can only make 1 attack against 1 individual - unless it attacks another swarm.

Examples:

Orc War Band, containing 30 Orcs
AC: 13
HP: 225
4 Attacks with +7 for 2d12+6 each
BA dash toward enemy

Bearded Devil Army, containing 30 Bearded Devils
AC: 13
HP: 780
4 Attacks with +7 for 4d8+18 (averaging damage & doubling it because of multiattack & adding some bonus damage to compensate for removal of infernal wound)

Now i will keep playing with numbers and i might find something i like. But since that won't be done over night i wanted to ask you guys if you played around with different rules or ideas. Maybe came to conclusions you actually liked that worked, etc. or even have some long forgotten link to a solution.

Kind regards,
LuccMa

[MoiMagnus]

During the last 5e campaign I've DM, high level battles were usually:
3 PCs + 20 squeletons
vs
~4 relevant ennemies + ~10 irrelevant ennemies (+ sometimes some "traps" like the mage tower trowing some huge rocks or thunder from the distance)

I didn't look on the internet for any rule to help me, so I had to improvise (and didn't think of using swarm rules or anything similar). Here is the few solutions I've used:

1) Averrage damage. On both side, any creature which isn't "relevant" does average damage when hitting, no dice roll. Usually, I also got rid of critical hit unless that's the only way for the creature to touch its target.
2) Approximative mouvement. If you have to count for every mouvement, that's way too long. So I was just moving my irrelevant ennemies in very approximative by taking all the figurines at once and moving them of what feeled like the good distance. Sometimes it was less, sometimes more, sometimes ennemis didn't ended up exactly on a "case", or multiple ennemies on the same case, but that was not important.
3) Group actions. I tend to use custom ennemies, so they had group actions. Example: the group of 4 mages here take their turn "continuing the ritual" that the PCs had to stop. Another Example: the archers don't fire at their turn, but the general has a special action "rain of arrows" which is as strong as the number of archers.
4) For the group of 20 squeletons, we had the convention that when they attacked, every result of the d20 was obtained. For smaller groups of squeletons or ennemies, I sometime used a similar "what's is the average number of hit?"
5) Large scale death. The battle is much more easier to handle once most creature are dead. Fireball and similar capacities are quite usefull for that.
6) Approximative HP. If ennemies suffer damages that aren't enough to kill, I would try to find the best simple approximation (like "those are half dead, and those are full life"). Writing their damages on the map also work pretty well if they are not the kind of ennemies that will move a lot.
7) When it is irrelevant ennemy vs irrelevant ally, I may not even roll any dice and arbitrary chose at the end of each turn how many of each side is dead.

Hope it helps.

[LuccMa]

1) Averrage damage. On both side, any creature which isn't "relevant" does average damage when hitting, no dice roll. Usually, I also got rid of critical hit unless that's the only way for the creature to touch its target.

Using average damage numbers in a battle with lots of moving pieces is the right thing. It saves quite a bit of time over an evening, yes.

3) Group actions. I tend to use custom ennemies, so they had group actions. Example: the group of 4 mages here take their turn "continuing the ritual" that the PCs had to stop. Another Example: the archers don't fire at their turn, but the general has a special action "rain of arrows" which is as strong as the number of archers.

This is why i want to implement swarms with max. 4 attacks - saves a lot of time. Having one swarm have one huge attack would probably be too swingy, which i am looking for 4 atm. If the swarms get smaller (30 orcs become 3 10 orc swarms, for example) the number of attacks should go down though.

5) Large scale death. The battle is much more easier to handle once most creature are dead. Fireball and similar capacities are quite usefull for that.

Once the numbers get more aligned with what we are used to in everyday encounters things get easier, correct. I want to get "running loads of enemies" as close to that as possible, not just when the encounter is basically already won.

6) Approximative HP. If ennemies suffer damages that aren't enough to kill, I would try to find the best simple approximation (like "those are half dead, and those are full life"). Writing their damages on the map also work pretty well if they are not the kind of ennemies that will move a lot.

Thats a good idea. I used to use "minions" - basically they had 1 HP because i couldnt be bothered to keep track of those 31 skeletons.

7) When it is irrelevant ennemy vs irrelevant ally, I may not even roll any dice and arbitrary chose at the end of each turn how many of each side is dead.

Did that too, a bunch of times. Neither i nor my players liked it very much, though.

[Aquillion]

The rules simply aren't made for it. I personly would recommend against hacks to apply them to it directly - they're unlikely to be well-balanced or satisfying. Instead, I suggest the following:

Script out the battle as if it were a dungeon. Run a session entirely based on planning and preparing for the battle, and make sure the players tell you exactly what their characters intend to do. Try to get some out-of-character information about their plans and how they want things to go, too - what parts of the battle they consider important and want you to focus on, if they'd be willing to retreat in the face of a loss, etc.

Then, using this, make a tentative script or flowchart for the battle in advance, with some branching possibilities based on how specific plans the players intend to implement go. For example, if the players intend to cast a particular spell, you could have different plans based around the die-rolls involved. If they intend to try and hold a particular area or target a particular commander, think about the various outcomes for that and how it could affect the larger battle. Also consider your players' capabilities and what you'll do if they use them in a way that might have a bigger effect on the fight (again, ideally, they should have told you their plans in advance, but they might think on their feet.)

At a bare minimum your flowchart should have possible outcomes for "winning overwhelmingly", "winning slightly", "extended standoff", "losing barely", and "losing overwhelmingly", or something like that, with at least general plans for how you'd describe and run each one as it happens.

As part of this, have several "encounters" planned for the players, which you can use based on how things go - representing smaller areas of fighting that the players participate directly in. Generally, these encounters should reflect the players trying to implement the plans they put together in the planning session, plus how they deal with any surprise plans the enemies come up with (from your planning while mapping out possible battle outcomes), plus the endgame outcomes of the various routes.

When it comes time to play the actual battle session, do not attempt to simulate the entire thing - that's beyond what the rules can do. Instead, use the encounters you planned above and your overarching "flowchart" of possible battle outcomes based on how players do in the encounters you prepared. Be ready to update your outcomes or leap rails in the flowchart if your players do something particularly amazing or fail catastrophically.

If done right, this should produce a battle that works well as a story while giving your players control over what happens and making their plans (and the execution of those plans) central to the outcome.

[Kane0]

So in short, do it Mass Effect style or break out a real wargame

[Aquillion]

Basically, yes. D&D isn't designed to handle tracking huge numbers of combatants - every part of the system, all the players' abilities, the amount of weight combat requires, all of that is going to strain weirdly if you try to simulate the entire battlefield.

[Kane0]

I’ve toyed with the idea of adapting chess or similar, but the trick is getting all the players involved.

[LuccMa]

That kind of Mass Effect Style works GREAT with bigger confrontations. I have run something like that several times in the past. Especially if you're running a war campaign you can map out the war and then implement changes depending on what your players do. They have a lot of agency, you can throw some really cool missions at them and everything feels great. I've run that for a city being besieged by undeads, too. How each district was doing was mapped out and depending on where characters went, how long they took to achieve certain goals, the undead were pushed back or gained some ground - and in the end the PCs ventured into nearby catacombs to beat the evil necromancer in time. That went fine.

Here comes the but.

Those are battles with more than one location and different goals. But the great, climatic fight of a campaign, the big red dragon with his 200 Kobold Minions and legion of Half-Dragons is fighting the Heroes and their allies, which they gained throughout the campaign. As i see it, currently i would have 2 options in that example. Either i force multiple locations and goals instead of a cinematic great clash of forces, or i couldnt run that kind of encounter because i can't roll for 300 pieces on a board. Its just not possible. Or, ofcourse, i just degrade kobolds, half-dragons and allies to background noise and have just a dragon vs. PC fight with a cool background (but thats not what i feel would be the best way to run that).

A battle between 1 Dragon, 1 gigantic kobold swarm, 1 huge Half-Dragon swarm, 1 Ally-Swarm and the PCs would be possible, though, because you make 1 monster out of many. A combat between few epic monsters is what 5e rules very much allow, i feel. But i am struggling with the way to convert monsters into swarms in great numbers.

Aquillion, have you run a mapped out single battle like the one i described before? If so i would very much like to hear how it went and how exactly you did it :)

Kind regards,
LuccMa

[Man_Over_Game]

That kind of Mass Effect Style works GREAT with bigger confrontations. I have run something like that several times in the past. Especially if you're running a war campaign you can map out the war and then implement changes depending on what your players do. They have a lot of agency, you can throw some really cool missions at them and everything feels great. I've run that for a city being besieged by undeads, too. How each district was doing was mapped out and depending on where characters went, how long they took to achieve certain goals, the undead were pushed back or gained some ground - and in the end the PCs ventured into nearby catacombs to beat the evil necromancer in time. That went fine.

Here comes the but.

Those are battles with more than one location and different goals. But the great, climatic fight of a campaign, the big red dragon with his 200 Kobold Minions and legion of Half-Dragons is fighting the Heroes and their allies, which they gained throughout the campaign. As i see it, currently i would have 2 options in that example. Either i force multiple locations and goals instead of a cinematic great clash of forces, or i couldnt run that kind of encounter because i can't roll for 300 pieces on a board. Its just not possible. Or, ofcourse, i just degrade kobolds, half-dragons and allies to background noise and have just a dragon vs. PC fight with a cool background (but thats not what i feel would be the best way to run that).

A battle between 1 Dragon, 1 gigantic kobold swarm, 1 huge Half-Dragon swarm, 1 Ally-Swarm and the PCs would be possible, though, because you make 1 monster out of many. A combat between few epic monsters is what 5e rules very much allow, i feel. But i am struggling with the way to convert monsters into swarms in great numbers.

Aquillion, have you run a mapped out single battle like the one i described before? If so i would very much like to hear how it went and how exactly you did it :)

Kind regards,
LuccMa

What I'd recommend is just tracking damage and using some sort of "spawner" on the map that indicates the larger part of the swarm.

So you have 3 or 4 half-dragons on the actual map, and a location where the swarm is. As you kill the half dragons, the DM tallies the damage done and kills them when he thinks enough damage has been dealt to them. Later, several more dragons split from the swarm to attack the party. If the players attack the swarm, then the swarm effectively spawns a new dragon to fight the players.

When the half-dragon life total is nearly gone, then the swarm breaks up into individuals.

[Vogie]

I'm planning one of these for my players. Here's what I'm doing:

I'm breaking the battle into 4 parts

• First part: Skill Challenge. This is a 4e mechanic that I use a lot that allows the PCs to act cinematic without using their resources. You set a DC and the players roll initiative. Spell use is waived as an Arcana check, cleaving through a pile of orcs will be athletics, channeling divine power is nature or religion, trampling over your enemies on horseback (or elephantback) is animal handling, Rapidfiring arrows could be acrobatics or perception, using persuasion to rally the allied troops, et cetera. I encourage you to have them describe the action, then you call the check, instead of them picking a check they're good at - A wizard who wants to Terrify the enemy troops with an illusion, for example, would probably want to use Arcana, but you can decide it's an intimidation or deception instead. It completes after each member of the party acts twice.
• Second part: Multi-target Combat encounter. Depending on how many failures the party had (beyond 2), the number of creatures expands using the minion mechanic (same as other creatures, but only 1 hit point, and do not take half damage when succeeding on saves). When they complete this encounter, there is an event that drives it forward - something like a guard running to get help, a survivor took the McGuffin and teleported away, etc.
• Third part: skill challenge again. This one has a set number of successes, you have to reach N+1 successes before you reach 3 failures, where N is the number of PCs. This guides them to the final encounter
• Fourth Part: Boss encounter. I have 2 of these set up - one that's at their level, and one that's going to be HARD (if they failed the 3rd part), typically with lieutenants.

[ImproperJustice]

I highly recommend grabbing a copy of Savage World Deluxe and cribbing the Mass Battle rules.

I think it works super simple.

You abstract the two military sides into a set number of tokens based on their relative strength, with some modifiers based on capabilities like magic, fearless troops, favorable terrain, air support, etc....

Then you have the opposing commanders make an opposed proficiency check and deduct tokens reflecting the number of caualties.

Then the PCs select a course of action and make a similar check. Based on the results they also inflict losses or retore tokens, and themselves may be wounded in the process.

The tokens provide a nice abstraction for the flow of battle and then you check for morale, and then both sides go at it again.


I have used this for massive wars, small scale conflicts, and even a street battle between the PCs, police, and a terrorist cell.
It takes minimal set up, and you can get through the whole conflict in less than an hour.