Suggestions for fantasy campaign mass battles

[DM of Doom]

Here\'s the situation: My players (Tracy/24th lvl Paladin, Becca/26th lvl Wizard, and Stef/24th lvl cleric) are in the midst of building their stronghold in the middle of the Stonelands in Faerun (a rocky desert in the Forgotten Realms setting).
They all have leadership, etc, and have a fairly impressive army at their disposal (in the name of Cormyr, of course).

I want to be able to throw in the occasional seige or mass battle. Maybe even a war once they\'re established.

The wargames I have rules for are Warlord (reaper), Confrontation (rackham), and of course, Warhammer (gw). I\'ve read over the WHFB rules and Stef and I are getting armies together for that (Skaven and Ogres, respecively). It seems like it might work, but be a bit over-the-top rules and mini requirements-wise for one-shot battles. And there would need to be rules conversions from 3.5 D&D to WHFB. Warlord and Confrontation are more skirmish-level games, right, so not quite what I need either.

So (after all that) the question:
Can anyone suggest ways to facilitate large battles in a d20 based RPG? Sourcebooks you reccomend, web resources, house rules, whatever. I\'d like to get some opinions in general, and especially advice from any who have done this sort of thing before...

 

[Naukhel]

You might want to check out the miniatures books for the D&D line, actually.

For myself, on the rare occasions that I end up with mass battles, the soldiers are fairly generic, and I usually do one attack roll for every 10 soldiers, to speed things up.

 

[Trevor]

I\'m pretty sure GWs mighty empires is available online now, that gives a system for working out campaigns and battles, witht he option of doing tabletop games if you want for some/all of the battles.

Your statements are a little contradictory, do you want to do tabletop battles with minis, or just have a battle resolution rules? I know there were pretty simple, but good rules for massed battles in the basic DnD game (blue book I think), that sort of thing may suit you better.

I would use WFB for the games, but thats just me, you can always use paper tokens if you want... As far as converting the characters goes, that should be pretty easy, just make em up using the wfb stat lines.

 

[darkartminiatures]

For rules you could use I.C.E. War Law. Its got some great encounter tables in it...i could copy a some of the tables and send them you if your interested?

 

[Mosch]

A pretty simple (and free) ruleset would be \"Roll out the Gun barrels\". When we played DSA and the players had to fight against an army of orcs, I wrote up some rules myself. Worked reasonably well; the catapults were a little underpowered I think, but the rules themselves were OK. If you want them, I can translate them and send them over.

 

[DM of Doom]

Firstly, thanks to all for your help!

Secondly, a clarification. I would like the option to do tabletop mini battles on a grander scale than the skirmish-style rules that D&D provides. But I need it to be fairly simple, I\'m sure how much the clan would be into learning a whole new ruleset just to do the occasional battle. (It\'s hard enough to pry them away from painting to play, and Tracy ususally paints while we play.)

@ Mosch: I had seen the ROTGB before but forgot where to find it. Thanks! Maybe a bit too simple, but good stuff nonetheless.

@ Darkart: If you\'ve got the free time and energy, sure. I am here.

 

[darkartminiatures]

I\'ve pm\'d you. I\'ve scanned in about 6 pages that you might find useful. If you need anymore info just give a pm.

 

[airhead]

You might give the DDM\'s (D&D Minis) game a perrusal, but it too is more skirmish based than a full out war. The OLD chainmail rules would fit very well - and Reaper\'s warlord game in it\'s simplest form plays very similar. (each grunt is a one hit wonder, Sgts. take 2 hits and Capts take 3) with characters being hit and damaged via standard 3.5 rules.

 

[Sithtainius]

Originally posted by DM of Doom
(It\'s hard enough to pry them away from painting to play, and Tracy ususally paints while we play.)

funny, that sounds just like Tiff....

 

[NecroN]

The old AD&D battlesystem was perfect for this sort of thing, though I have no clue how well it would \'convert\' to 3.5.

 

[Holy Smigs]

d20 can handle this just fine...

you just gotta mod HP a bit to speed up combat...

do something like reduce everyone\'s HP to just their Level + Con (so it should be trackable on dice...
squads all have the same HP for each model (thus every time the squad takes X HP damage it loses a model)
and run from there...



personally, I\'m a big fan of the war and the players arn\'t overly connected
either the battles endings are determined by plot (what\'d be most interesting)
or by separate gaming, and the PC part of it isn\'t large enough to affect the whole battle

Such as: The Keep is being seiged... while the players are doing the \'sneaky sneaky\' though the back way to open the gate, the battle rages on outside...
if the players wanted to \'influence\' the battle, then it\'d be, run the RP side up to the opening of the gate...

then run the battle outside (adjusting the battle length and any special stuff based on how long the PCs took...)



if the players are dying to be on the field,
then just to an off the cuff conversion,
since it\'s RP, it\'s not gona run like a fair fight in the first place,
find a comperable model, and then do the beefing up as needed...

no one\'s ever happy with a direct conversion rule anyways...