Dominions & Mass Combat

[BusterBluth]

My apologies if this topic has already appeared & dismissed on these boards. This is one that pops up a lot in the context of high level fantasy RPGs.

I'm interested in submitting an optional ruleset that's somewhat similar to what was published in the old Metzer Companion level book. So, I'm curious if there's any interest in this. Plus, does anyone know if the War Machine rules are definitely outside the OGL?

The goal is to produce a ruleset as small as possible, perhaps with an accompanying spreadsheet, which will simplify the act of tracking dominions. I think it'd be pretty cool to run, say, the old Test of the Warlords module with BFRPG. But the original dominion rules in the Companion set always felt incomplete to me.

[Solomoriah]

Such a ruleset would be welcome. Long, long ago such a thing was created, but the creator of that supplement withdrew it. Don't know if I ever knew why.

[BusterBluth]

Here's a general idea of what I had in mind:

As in the original, assume 24m hexes, so a starting barony = a single 24m hex.

Each hex can have a terrain type (desert, mountain, etc), with a default resource value. Terrain can be categorized as

• Wilds

• Borderlands

• Civilized

Each category usually equates to 10X increase in population.

Rulers decide how to allocate their money on dominion improvements, among three competing priorities:

• Military: troops, fortifications, armories

• Economic: trade routes, roads, ports

• Social: monuments, great wonders, holidays

Social spending boosts your rolls when checking dominion confidence. Economic spending boosts resource production. Military spending keeps you from getting trampled by devious neighbors!

That's a brief overview. The challenge is in making a 1-size-fits-all for dominions ranging in size from single hex baronies to Imperial governments. It's challenging!

[Clever_Munkey]

for month's now I've been trying to find a way integrate mass combat in the campaign I'm running. The rules I've used have all been based off of "One Brain Cell" war games. So far we've had 3 large battles and each time the fighters end up bored, the thief is ineffective, and the cleric and MU devastate the battlefield. It's just really hard to translate the fact that one guy in a unit of 5-200 has a sword +1 into a real effect without taking up large amounts of time.

Unfortunately my internet access is very limited at the moment so I'm afraid I won't be able to help much until that changes, but I recommend reading up on "One Brain Cell" wargames, and By This Poleaxe. I'm not really sure this is the way to go, but it has given me a starting point.

[chiisu81]

Check these previous threads as well:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1545
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=738
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=737

[Ranger322]

@ Clever_Munkey

I had to come up with a basic mass combat ruleset for an RPG I was running a while back. It worked like this:

-All units were based on 8 man movement trays.

-When two units came into contact, each side rolled a number of d6 equal to the number of soldiers on that base.

-The two compared totals, and the highest total won. The winner rolled 1d6 to see how many soldiers were killed and removed from the enemy movement tray. This reduces the number of d6 they can roll in the next combat.

-Ranged units were permitted to attack from a specified range and could target a single unit tray. Combat is rolled as normal, but the defending unit cannot do damage to the ranged unit, only "shield up".

-If multiple units "team up" on an enemy unit, both trays roll and add their dice total together. The effects are usually brutal, but hey...this is war!

-Heroes or PCs could attach themselves to a friendly unit and move with them. In combat, the Hero's weapon's max damage can be added to his unit's dice total.

- If a Hero chooses to fight as an individual, he can roll 1d6 per character level + his weapon's max damage. This makes him fairly effective against a tray with a few remaining soldiers, but not against an entire unit unless that unit rolled very poorly. I think this makes him tough, but no superhero.

-If a unit with a Hero is defeated, damage is dealt to soldiers before the Hero. If all soldiers in the unit are killed, the Hero takes any remaining damage. (So if a unit of 2 soldiers with a Hero is defeated and the winner rolls a 4 on his d6, both soldiers are killed and the Hero takes 2 damage)

-If a Hero is defeated acting individually, he takes the full value of the d6 rolled damage.

Those are the basics. Note that this puts all soldier types on equal footing and makes no allowances for armor type, soldier size, training, or any other abilities that would make one unit better than another. I'm sure modifications could be made to accommodate different characteristics, but this made for a fast, very brutal mass battle. We were able to complete a battle of a couple hundred troops in an hour or so.

[BusterBluth]

For the Mass Combat part, I'm going to incorporate the old War & Siege Machine rules. These were the mass combat rules for Mentzer Basic and it seems appropriate that they be part of BFRPG. There were some additional rules in Dragon for these, that I'd also like to introduce.

My goal is that the accompanying spreadsheet will handle the number crunching for you. My progress is slow ... i've a few other projects I'm working on, but I'll check in and post updates periodically.