Mass Combat Rules

These mass battle rules have been adapted from Savage Worlds (starting on page 104) and the Lord of the Rings (starting on page 238).

Participants

Inside: Saturday group, Cain, Alfadir, Merlin, Adana, Elana, Liza, Seeker (first half), Ariona

Heroes:

Villains:

Heroic Units:

Villainous Units:

Events:

Setup (pre-battle)

Assign tokens to each unit:

Heroes decide with which unit they are initially affiliated, and with which other heroes they are teaming.

Combat

Combat is divided into 10 minute turns. The following phases happen each turn.

Divvy Forces

Each general (Gerald, Sledge, Lefty, Selena, Mordred) simultaneously and secretly allocates their army’s tokens with respect to the enemy units. For each general, sum the allocation differences across all enemy units to determine the aggregate bonus or penalty to that general’s battle roll.

Decide Actions

Heroes and Generals decide their actions for the turn. Possible actions include:

Hero Combat table: When fighting, roll 2d6, and use the result as follows:

Determine Modifiers

Before each unit makes its battle roll, the appropriate modifiers must be decided. These include:

Note 1: A hero may opt to use mystic energy as his attack form for a turn. To do so, he pays any amount of mystic sphere points up to your mystic level. For every 5 points spent, a +1 bonus is granted to the battle roll. In this case, no roll need be made, and thus no vitality damage is taken.

Note 2: For teaming heroes, for every member of the team beyond the first, a -1 penalty is incurred (so for a team of three, if the three members each grant a +2 bonus, their total bonus will be only +4, not +6, due to the extra members). This penalty represents the more limited opportunities available when multiple heroes battle the same opponents.

Resolve Deadly Combats

Each deadly combat that has been incurred is a 10 round fight (maximum) between the heroic team that rolled it, and the chosen foe. It is resolved as a normal d20 Future battle would be.

Make Battle Rolls

Each unit rolls a d20, adding their appropriate modifiers, against DC 15. Success causes the opposing force to lose one token (according to this turn’s allocation – if tied, general chooses how the tie is broken). For every 5 above 15, the opposing army loses an additional token.

About Unconsciousness, Death and Dying

If a character begins incurring lethal damage, he must save against unconsciousness, dying and death as normal. If he is teamed with others, those people may heal him by spending mystic points (up to their mystic level).

If a character would normally die, he has a small chance of being healed by friendly units. The player rolls a luck check (7 = fully healed; 1=3d6, 2=2d6, 3=1d6). If he fails, he dies as normal.

If a character falls unconscious, his unit takes a -2 morale penalty that turn. For every turn a character is unconscious, he takes an additional 1d6 vitality damage from the combat raging around him. However, as long as he’s not dead yet, he gets the luck check to get healed by friendlies every turn as well.

If a general is removed from the battle for any reason, the Will save bonus for the morale check becomes +0. A lieutenant can take over as the new general, assuming he has communication with the troops (the lieutenant loses his next action getting his bearings as the new general).

Make Morale Check

Leader makes a Will save for morale each turn that his unit loses a token – DC 10 base:

If the Leader fails the check, the army is defeated and the troops retreat. One last battle roll determines how many troops are defeated during the retreat. Apply the amount the Leader failed to the final battle roll to represent a "morale penalty" for the retreat. (E.g., if the leader fails badly, then this penalty could result in devastating losses during the retreat – i.e., a rout).

Aftermath

For each token lost during the battle, roll a d20. The victor recovers a token on a roll of 11-20. (I.e., 50% chance per token that it wasn’t permanently lost – the ). For the loser, it’s a roll of 15-20 (adjusted upward by 1 per two points the Leader failed the final morale check – i.e., by 2-3, 16-20; by 4-5, 17-20; by 6-7, 18-20; by 8-9, 19-20, by 10 or more, 20).

Events

Gerald is there with his contingent, and Sledge is ready as well. They have done quite a bit of planning and preparation.

Then Sharptooth’s force shows up, and battle ensues. Sharptooth had to attack early, and thus their forces are not as well prepared as they hoped to be.

The battle is going well, then Mordred shows up with his force. Things now look dire. He shows up once Selena loses a certain percentage of her forces.

The tide of the battle turns, and the good forces are now losing.

Keep the suspense and tension for a bit, then Lefty arrives in the nick of time with her force, giving them a fighting chance.

It is possible that one of them could talk Selena into switching sides, since Mordred’s corrupted are so horrifying to her.

Destroying the Bubble

Forces can be allocated against the bubble, which counts as though it has 5 tokens. If success is achieved by the enemy unit, then damage inflicted counts against the bubble’s current strength, represented by jewels (16 to start). If it reaches zero, the bubble is breached.

Once DEO appears, two beads per turn are sucked out of the bubble, and the battlefield is universally affected by a Heavy bombardment effect.

Tweaks and Improvements

Oz suggests the DC for battle rolls be 10 + average troop level, instead of DC 15. Average troop level should probably also modify the DC 20 checks to contribute to the general’s battle roll.

The phenomenon of Lefty’s troops losing one token per round to representing their waning mystic power is a good general rule for magic- or other limited-resource-wielding unit types.

Some players suggested 3d6 instead of 1d20 for the battle roll, to average out the results (since each turn is 10 minutes long). But personally I (Curtis) think 1d20 represents the spirit of the d20 system better, and effectively captures the difficulty of war.