Level Up (A5E) Mass Combat?

[Zaukrie]

MCDM?

_
glass.

Matt Colville's company.

 

[Haldrik]

Should the "leveled-up" 5th Edition include rules for mass combat?

Yes. Mass combat is important.

At the "master tier", levels 9 to 12, when characters found institutions, build fortresses, and so on, they become responsible for large numbers of nonplayer characters (soldiers, religious adherents, wizard apprentices, celebrity fans, citizens of the community, etcetera).

There needs to be a way to handle "swarms" of characters.

The rules need to be elegant, as simple as possible but not simpler. Likewise, the rules need to apply to many different kinds of scenarios, involving large numbers.

At the same time, the actions of individual player characters need to be able to contribute too somehow.

In any case, mass combat becomes increasingly important at higher levels.

 

[tetrasodium]

I figure in 5E, the easiest way to do this is just to stat military units as high-Challenge creatures. A troop of 25 soldiers would be a Challenge 4 Huge creature with, like, 125 HP and four attacks per round. Attacks that affect an area deal double damage to the unit if they include 2 spaces of the unit, or triple if if they include the troop’s entire space.

A battalion of 300 soldiers would be, like, a Challenge 20 Colossal Creature (do they have colossal in 5E?), with 1000 HP, multiple high-damage attacks, reactions, and legendary actions to represent different tactics. It might have a really long 'reach' to represent there being troops arrayed in defensive lines outside the main body, and the ability to make unlimited opportunity attacks.

Now, unit vs unit tactical combat is different than long term military strategy, with supply lines, scouting, sieges, etc. That sort of stuff would deserve its own book, since unless you're Sun-Tzu, you can't really condense the entirety of all military knowledge to a short chapter.

Going to second this. I kind of use the fate mob & teamwork rules where you give some bonuses to skills & basically take a group of weak monsters & add all their stuff together as one creature & it seems to work pretty well.
Heavy duty mass combat rules are probably a bit out of scope, but a couple sentences of quick/simple guideline/advice might be a lot of use for less experienced GMs.

 

[aco175]

I could see using it once or twice per campaign for something grand. We seemed to get along so far without them, so it is not a big deal to me though.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My suggestion is to use the monster subtype "troop".

Monster Subtypes - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder RPG Database

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Creature Types & Subtypes – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

 

[Stalker0]

Going to second this. I kind of use the fate mob & teamwork rules where you give some bonuses to skills & basically take a group of weak monsters & add all their stuff together as one creature & it seems to work pretty well.
Heavy duty mass combat rules are probably a bit out of scope, but a couple sentences of quick/simple guideline/advice might be a lot of use for less experienced GMs.

Yeah I use the mob rules a lot for this myself. They aren't perfect but they get the job done a lot, and the fact that I don't have to roll most of the time, I just do X damage, helps me focus on other aspects I need to roll.