Simple Mass Combat, Alternate B

From: Brian Laxson <b1laxson_at_...>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 21:23:26 -0400


It occured to me there is another relatively easy way to handle mass combat.

First divide up the forces in the armies by type. Like 8 Carmanian knights, 150 peasants and 20 Praxian mercenaries.

Each group fights with it's best combat skill. The group gets an automatic augment based on the "Targets" chart on page 230 for Extending magic. That is: 2 +3, 3 +6, 4 +9,5 +12, 6 +15, 10 +20, 30 +30, 100 +40, 300 +60, 1000 +80.

Rough interpolation may be used to handle troop sizes between stated numbers.

Thus the 8 Carmanina knights get +18, the 150 peasants +45 and the 20 Praxians +25.

Now you could give them a starting AP equal to their base skill but I thinks this favours the elite skill/low presence forces. The alternate would be to set their starting AP equal to their troop size bonus. That is the knights 18 AP, peasants 45AP and Praxians 25AP.

Then you augment, edge and handicap for leaders and special characters. Augments increase their combat skill and the AP they have. A +3 augment would raise the knights from skill 15w1 and 18 AP to skill 18w1 with 21 AP.

This gives you a handle of combatants for each exchange.

Personally I think the early concept of one AP tally for the whole army is better and will be easier for a narrator to run.

In both you need to track how augments are made to the army. The real *heroic* actions for the players is to take out enemy heroes providing these augment. The narrator then removes the effects when they leader/special character is taken out.
For removing AP though you may want to adjust the AP loss based on the overall progress of the battle. If a leader had granted +8 AP at the start and the army has lost half it's starting AP then you may only want to deduct 4AP. However reductions of the armies skill level is always at full.

Brian Laxson
Agnar, Humakti seeking battlefield

Powered by hypermail