Mass combat rules and ideas

[Yinkin]

Hello everyone!

I know that there is a mass combat system for RQ upcoming, and that Jeff used it in the White Bull campaign. Also that someone wrote down their impressions of it. I think it was discussed here in the forums but I can for the life of my web seaching skills not find it. Does anyone know where it was?

I am running the Coming Storm/Red Cow campaign in RQ and we are coming up to a place where the clan feud is blazing strong and Red Cow are going to attack their neighbors and I thought it would be a nice touch to use part of what we've seen.

[Stephen L]

These are links to what I remember of the discussions on the forum:

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/14316-battle-of-queens/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/15497-handling-large-scale-battle/

 

[Oracle]

Also in the Journal of Runic Studies, Issue 12, @lordabduldid an annotation of the battle rules as used in the Battle of Queens episode of the White Bull campaign.

[icebrand]

Theres also BRP4e mass combat spot rule!

[Monty Lovering]

I use the quick and dirty method of assigning a combatant a die based on how hard to kill and effective at killing they are.  
 

So, average untrained with poor equipment gets a d4. Less if they have no real martial equipment. A decently equipped individual with competent skills a d6. A Rune Master might get a d20. It’s all relative and as a battle rages on you might make the side that is faring badly all drop down to a different die. 

In an fight with even numbers you just roll the dice in pairs. The higher roll forces the loser to re-roll. If they roll less than their opponent’s original roll, they are out of combat. If they roll less than half of it they are dead. 

So a fight could go:

Trolls 8 x d4 trollkin, 2 x d10 dark troll, 1 x d20 Rune Lord

Elves 9 x d8 normal, 2 x d20 Rune Lords

First minute:

Trolls: (d4: 1, 1, 4, 3, 2, 2, 3, 1) (d10: 7, 9) (d20: 12)

Elves: (d8: 3, 6, 4, 2, 7, 3, 8, 4, 5) (d20: 17, 9)

Just match the rolls up from weakest combatant to strongest with any imbalance of weak to strong just being how it goes  

So six trollkin need to re-roll, & one dark troll & two normal elves and one  elven rune lord. Five trollkin fail the re-roll, and no elves. These rolls show there are five dead trollkin, one is out of combat as is one dark troll, and three elves including one Rule Lord are out of the combat.

The fight now has uneven numbers. So you just roll the dice pair for the smaller group first.

Second minute:

Trolls: (d4: 3, 2), (d10: 7), (d20: 15)

Elves: (d8: 4, 5, 1, 6)

The re-rolls show that only one trollkin is left fighting, the others die, two normal elves are dead and another is out of combat.

But the elves have 3d8 and a d20 left over: 1, 2, 4, 14. 

When there are rolls left over then they can either be matched against rolls made by the opponent that we’re already matched against in that minute, including adding several rolls together.

The only logical way to do this given the rolls is to add all four spare elf rolls together and match the sum (20) against the troll RuneLord roll. But when you do this only the highest of the rolls is used for matching the re-roll. So the troll Rune Lord’s 15 is less than 21, but the re-roll is against the 14.

They just make it so are out of combat leaving one trollkin and one darktroll vs three elves and and an elven Rune Lord. 

At this point there are seven dead trollkin, one is out of combat as are one dark troll and the troll Rune Lord. Two normal elves are dead and four and an elven Rune Lord are out of combat.

What out of combat means is up to you. Surrendered? Maybe but not in this fight. Fled? Withdrawn with injuries they don’t have enough magic to heal? On the floor bleeding out but saveable? DI’d?

It’s quick. It’s dirty. It means you can in five minutes resolve a battle that would take ages. I’ve used it to determine an off screen combat between Sun County militia and broo whilst the PCs were under Rabbit Hat farm.  

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

I’m going to be running BOQ as well soon so I’m interested in ideas. The White Bull Campaign rules seemed to resolve around a “guiding passion” of the group but the problem is that my group don’t have one other than Argrath loyalty. And I don’t want to impose that on them, to insist that they fight with a pro-Argrath objective. I want it to be their decisions why they are fighting, but from a passion POV they will be there for different reasons. Harmast is pro Sartar, Vishi Dunn is anti-Lunar, Drukzilla the humakti duck is both.

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I’m going to be running BOQ as well soon so I’m interested in ideas. The White Bull Campaign rules seemed to resolve around a “guiding passion” of the group but the problem is that my group don’t have one other than Argrath loyalty.

My group answered the call when Queen Leika sent the Black Arrow.  Different motivations to join in - some were loyal to Leika like Harmast, some were simply companions of Harmast (and went for that reason), some hated the Lunars.  I don't think any had super-strong "guiding passions" invoked though.

Also check out this thread that summarized various prior discussions: Battle of the Queens

Although prior to whatever Mass Battle rules are in process, you can read how I handled the battle in the penultimate post of this thread: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/9476-battle-skill/

Edited May 1, 2022 by jajagappa

[PhilHibbs]

Warning: self-indulgent “in my game…” ahead. TL:DR I want to mould the course of the battle according to how a Summons of Evil beforehand went, but not too strictly.

So in my last session the group arrived at Old Top a few days before the Battle of the Queens.

Off the cuff I decided that there would be a Summons of Evil, and asked them if they wanted to take part. Harmast and Drukzilla did, Vishi Dunn said he would hang back as he didn’t feel that this was his business. Orlanthi stuff. I flicked through the Bestiary looking for a monster to appear, and out of the pages jumped a Fiend of Cacodemon. How bad could that be? Not having paid too much attention to the stats and powers when making the decision, turns out it’s a LOT worse than I thought! Those things are NASTY.

To cut a long story short Vishi Dunn rode in and crit’ed the thing to the head, then won the spirit combat thanks to a combination of Spirit Block and assistance from Truesword attacks on the spirit. Details in another thread.

Clearly this is a good omen for the battle - horrors are coming, but can be defeated. On the other hand, they did cheat by bringing in an outside force that should not have been part of the ritual. That is going to have two consequences - there will be unexpected Praxian allies riding in part way through the battle, but I don’t know what the price will be. Something has to go wrong. Maybe I’ll work in Kallyr’s death and make it look like that was because of the interference somehow. Everyone takes their eye off the ball and the assassins make their move in the confusion.

Also, I count that as taking part in a successful this-world heroquest so maybe there should be some reward for that, an extra augment during the battle maybe. Suggestions welcome. My group don't use the forum.

Edited May 9, 2022 by PhilHibbs

[French Desperate WindChild]

On 5/9/2022 at 1:04 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Also, I count that as taking part in a successful this-world heroquest so maybe there should be some reward for that, an extra augment during the battle maybe. Suggestions welcome.

would say a kind of morale augment like +20% in anything related to the battle

once they discover they were wrong, you may cancel it or even transform it in -10% or -20% (if that doesn't kill them, after all ennemies would be exhausted) maybe only for only pow related rolls