Questions About the Mass Combat System - OG Myth-Weavers

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World of Farland

A world conquered by evil and ruled by the Lords of Sin; A unique campaign setting designed to be used with all editions of D&D.


Questions About the Mass Combat System

   
Questions About the Mass Combat System

So, I stumbled upon Farland's mass combat rules, which are excellent, but one thing I'm not entirely clear on is this: how exactly do people handle movement (on what time scale does movement occur, what distance can a unit move, etc) and engagements between multiple units on each side. Specifically, determining who attacks (and who can attack) whom.

So, thoughts from people who've actually run the system before would be very much appreciated, as the example combat didn't really answer my questions.

Hey, thanks for the compliment. The system was always intended to be very abstract, but I could also see using miniatures as representing a number of troops. In that case, their movement would be the movement of the slowest member of the unit.

So returning to this, on consideration my goal isn't tactical movement, though that might be a way to do it. Some possible ways of doing it:

1: A movement-based approach. Divide each day into 4 (ish) 'turns'. Each unit has an initiative modified by a commander's tactics skill. They can attack everything within the same square (a very large area). All units on side A roll as one entity against all those on side B.

Problems:
A: When is combat resolved in this case? It seems problematic to resolve it multiple times per turn. Also, the casualty table would have to be modified. Perhaps the answer is resolve everything at the end of the turn, but once an enemy moves into a square a skill check (opposed?) is required to disengage and move to another square?
B: What about artillery and seige equipment. I everything up to modern artillery would have a range that would force it to be in the same square as a target. An upshot of this is that your system can simulate wars with muskets and cannon--not relevant to the Farland CS, but a worthwhile point. On the other hand, cannons (or balistae) can't chase people down. Perhaps attach a penalty specific to that to that sort of thing.
-This adds a really irritating amount of math that under the current rules since CR and number bonuses are relative. This is actually one of the weaknesses of the system (as misused by me). It would help to make a table of flat bonuses and penalties for CR and numbers. (Set a baseline at CR 1 and 1000 troops, say?)


2: A 'resolved all at once' approach. Each unit designates one other target, or an objective/area to defend (a city, a hill, the 1st Legion, etc). This determines who attacks whom. To prevent excessive ganging up on one unit, tactics rolls may be in order if you bring several units to bear on one target. This has the benefit of resolving everything at once as-intended. You lose some of the tactical richness though. Also, it would still benefit from a fixed rather than relative table of CRs and numbers.

You have some good thoughts. I think the main issue you are running up against is that the system is intended to be very abstract. If you want to write up an addendum, I would consider publishing it on the site.





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