Newbie with questions..

[Sapper31]

Hey folks,


Been really wanting to play this game for some time now. However, I've never really played DnD or any PnP roleplaying game (I am an experienced PC gamer however, and know how RPGs work in general).

I've read the 1.0 and 2.2 rules front to back a couple of times. My main concern is: how do you make combat work practically at larger scales?

With the level of detail involved in this game, and the fact that many of the encounters can easily be 20+ NPCs with vehicles, it seems that not only would a small group of players almost always be hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned: resolving combat for that number of NPCs would be extremely long and tedious.

For those of you that have actually played, how do you make it work?

I am hoping to try a game with my friends next week.. I've warned them it will probably be very rough until we get in a rhythm. We are all PC gamers primarily and I'm hoping we can all overcome our inherent ADD. This combat problem is something I would really like some insight on however, as taking 3 hours to resolve 5 seconds of in-game combat doesn't seem appealing.

[James Langham2]

Welcome. We've all been there at some point.

my advice:

* if you make a mistake you make a mistake

* version 2.x works better for larger combats

* before starting a real game go into sandbox mode and run some practices

* start small and build up - start with npc v npc with each player having 1 each then expand in small steps e.g. add extra npcs, add pcs, add a vehicle, etc

* in live games don't be afraid to fudge what happens to npcs

* don't tell the players everything e.g. the npc is hit and falls down behind the wall as the two rounds hit his body not he's dead

* above all enjoy it

Let us know how it goes.

[Olefin]

One thing you can do is to break up the combat by spreading out the enemy forces. They may have 20 men and vehicles but you can break it up into an advance party of perhaps one vehicle and 4-6 men and then the rest of the group in a "main body".

This allows for characters to not be so heavily outnumbered in such an encounter and also breaks the combat up into more manageable chunks.

There are also things like "The Last Battle" for Twilight 2000 that are made to resolve larger battles with vehicles and larger groups of people. You can find it on ebay or there are reprints of it that are available.

[Cdnwolf]

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=3599&highlight=mass+combat

[Sapper31]

Thanks for the quick replys! All solid advice. It's nice to see an active forum for this game as alot of the info I have been coming across was very dated and I worried it was completely dead.


I tried a few trial combats with some random NPCs and some rough PCs. A few ideas I have are as follows:

- I created an encounter generator (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8fvycdl1Qu7QWR2cU5YaWVnN1U/view?usp=sharing) with excel. Only group encounters work at the moment. This uses all the stock tables from v2.2, and lets you generate a groups vehicles, support weapons, and numbers very quickly. Note you need macros enabled.

- Generate terrain. I'm currently using grid ruled chart paper, and making some simple contour lines, trees, and land cover. Similar to wargaming/last battle, anything that blocks line of sight (such as >20m of forest, elevation change, buildings, etc) disallows direct fire actions. Combat can then be played out on the chart paper similar to warhammer using a ruler for range determination.

- Spreading sub-units out. Basically what you said Olefin. With a group encounter including 4 sub-units of 6 for instance, each sub-unit is spread across the encounter area. Say for instance you are in open terrain and roll an encounter range of 8 (300x8=2400m). Your 4 groups of 6 would be spread across this 2400m area, so if the PCs make contact with a sub-unit, the others may be at further range or blocked from LoS. PCs can then divide and conquer or hit and run without taking fire from 24 units simultaneously. The NPC unit in contact may also try to communicate with their other sub-units who can then provide support or maneuver onto the PC group (allowing for some interesting hit/run tactics or ambushing). Another option is to leave some of the sub-units "off-map" and allow them to come in a later point in the battle, from a direction of GM choice.

- Something I'm seeing a lot of is novice NPCs being knocked out of battle very quickly. Novice NPCs have an initiative of 1, and according to P.194(v2.2) "A character whose initiative level is reduced to 0 or lower may not act at all". Also P.211 "As soon as an NPC takes any hits in the first row, he or she is slightly wounded and suffers a -1 initiative penalty". This precludes them for further combat action. Am I interpreting this correctly? It seems reasonable that un-committed/rookie soldiers would panic/exaggerate in the face of any wound whatsoever. This also allows for post-battle roleplay treatment of enemy wounded/POWs, forcing the PCs into some interesting ethical scenarios (kill wounded enemy? eat the wounded!? try to recruit him and have an NPC army? interrogate? Etc.)

I did buy the last battle PDF and read it over. While it does seem much simpler (especially for vehicle combat), I think it sacrifices too much in terms of detail. It could work with modification, but at that point you might as well just homebrew your own marker/miniature battle with grid paper. Time to hit the dollar store and pick up some plastic army men!

Anyways i'm just spitballing here. Please keep the ideas coming as, again, it's pretty intimidating facing my first RPG which I must also GM!

[James Langham2]

I regard the novice as being out of action as also covering them deciding that they have had enough and slinking off or just keeping their heads down for the remainder of the fight.

I would love to see the spreadsheet if you are willing to share it.



Thanks for the quick replys! All solid advice. It's nice to see an active forum for this game as alot of the info I have been coming across was very dated and I worried it was completely dead.


I tried a few trial combats with some random NPCs and some rough PCs. A few ideas I have are as follows:

- I created an encounter generator (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8fvycdl1Qu7QWR2cU5YaWVnN1U/view?usp=sharing) with excel. Only group encounters work at the moment. This uses all the stock tables from v2.2, and lets you generate a groups vehicles, support weapons, and numbers very quickly. Note you need macros enabled.

- Generate terrain. I'm currently using grid ruled chart paper, and making some simple contour lines, trees, and land cover. Similar to wargaming/last battle, anything that blocks line of sight (such as >20m of forest, elevation change, buildings, etc) disallows direct fire actions. Combat can then be played out on the chart paper similar to warhammer using a ruler for range determination.

- Spreading sub-units out. Basically what you said Olefin. With a group encounter including 4 sub-units of 6 for instance, each sub-unit is spread across the encounter area. Say for instance you are in open terrain and roll an encounter range of 8 (300x8=2400m). Your 4 groups of 6 would be spread across this 2400m area, so if the PCs make contact with a sub-unit, the others may be at further range or blocked from LoS. PCs can then divide and conquer or hit and run without taking fire from 24 units simultaneously. The NPC unit in contact may also try to communicate with their other sub-units who can then provide support or maneuver onto the PC group (allowing for some interesting hit/run tactics or ambushing). Another option is to leave some of the sub-units "off-map" and allow them to come in a later point in the battle, from a direction of GM choice.

- Something I'm seeing a lot of is novice NPCs being knocked out of battle very quickly. Novice NPCs have an initiative of 1, and according to P.194(v2.2) "A character whose initiative level is reduced to 0 or lower may not act at all". Also P.211 "As soon as an NPC takes any hits in the first row, he or she is slightly wounded and suffers a -1 initiative penalty". This precludes them for further combat action. Am I interpreting this correctly? It seems reasonable that un-committed/rookie soldiers would panic/exaggerate in the face of any wound whatsoever. This also allows for post-battle roleplay treatment of enemy wounded/POWs, forcing the PCs into some interesting ethical scenarios (kill wounded enemy? eat the wounded!? try to recruit him and have an NPC army? interrogate? Etc.)

I did buy the last battle PDF and read it over. While it does seem much simpler (especially for vehicle combat), I think it sacrifices too much in terms of detail. It could work with modification, but at that point you might as well just homebrew your own marker/miniature battle with grid paper. Time to hit the dollar store and pick up some plastic army men!

Anyways i'm just spitballing here. Please keep the ideas coming as, again, it's pretty intimidating facing my first RPG which I must also GM!

[Sapper31]

Sure, I linked it in the post but here it is again.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8fvycdl1Qu7QWR2cU5YaWVnN1U/view?usp=sharing

Let me know if it doesn't work. Basically sheet 1 lets you either roll for or manually select from a dropdown the terrain and territory. Then roll 1D6 (with button) for encounter type and roll 1D10 for range. If you got a group encounter, go to sheet 3 where you can roll 1D10 for group type and it will autopopulate the encounter. All the other rolls for vehicles/weapons etc.. are just done inside the program. You can modify the tables as required.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Some other things to consider...
Groups are going to be controlled by a leader so while you have to make decisions for every "leader", their troops will do what the leader tells them to do. So for arguments sake, if you had 50 NPCs, 10 of them are probably group/team leaders so you're only making 10 decisions rather than 50!
And then if it comes to combat, rather than work out actions for each individual NPC, decide what the group leader orders them to do and then have the whole group do that.
If it comes to opening fire, have all the small arms fire as a group and decide a percentage chance that the group might hit the PCs. Roll your percentile dice just once per group action rather than make the Small Arms check for each individual NPC. This saves a lot of dice rolling!

Sometimes you just have to tell the players to "think" before accepting a challenging situation - you got to know when to walk away (and when to run!) from a potential threat.
Explain to your players before you start gaming that their characters are one small group struggling for survival and there are many larger groups out there that can easily destroy them and so sometimes, they will be better off getting the hell outta Dodge.
A "don't pull the tail of the tiger" sort of thing.

And speaking of animals, the same thing applies if they encounter wild animals such as bears or boars (or tigers!). Yeah they might be able to take it down but at what cost in ammo? And there's always the chance that one of them could get injured... or killed.
By encouraging them to walk away from big threats, you can have large groups of NPCs in an area without having to micro-manage all of them in an encounter. You can also use large groups to subtly manoeuvre the PCs away from danger (or places you haven't got details/info/encounters etc. etc. of)

[Olefin]

They need to think about if they have the advantage in any encounter if they have a choice in the fight.

Example - in a recent campaign we had one guy dismounted with a sniper rifle, night sight and radio as we advanced over open country with a Bradley and one other vehicle that had little combat capability - we ran into an enemy convoy and engaged, mainly because we didnt want to run and lose one of our guys

long and short of it - we got damn lucky - and ended up with a damaged Bradley that needed immediate repairs mainly because of some very lucky rolls on a TOW and 25mm gun shots - the better part of valor would have probably been to cut and run

but in the end its their game - if they want to take on that large group worst case if they do end up losing its a learning experience for the next time

[Olefin]

Do you have the module Ruins of Warsaw? There is a combat system in there that can be used for large fights on how to group NPC's for rolls and to make a fight with large numbers of troops go faster.

I remembered my GM used it as we had a rather larger group after we busted two groups of NATO soldiers out of POW camps during our campaign

[Sapper31]

Thanks for the replies guys. I figure that indeed most of the time with larger groups, it won't be a fight but a question of evasion. Still though, if the group is spotted first, I will need to play out some sort of pursuit or enemy action: even if its only until the players get far enough away. Treating subunits as squads and just playing the leader seems like a great idea.

I will check ruins of warsaw and see what they recommend.

My next question:

Do you play with a board & markers/minatures of some kind? If so what do you use for scale? All the maps included are usually sub 500m range, and recommend a scale of 1 grid being 10m. However, some encounters are 1-3km (possibly more with binoculars). That makes for a HUGE map anywhere near that scale. What do you use for long range combat? I'm currently thinking about just using an intermediate scale map (like a 1:25000 topo) that lets the players hash out their scheme of maneuver and do any sniping / long range work, then bring out some 1CM=10M maps.

As a treat for you guys, I have been playing with photoshop cartography and here is my remake of "Chaos Deathspike Megakillers" from the rulebook, use as you will.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8fvycdl1Qu7T3NWNzNfYl9wdW8/view?usp=sharing

[Tegyrius]

I've never been able to get a group to try it, but I've always wanted to use micro armor (1:285 miniatures) for vehicle-focused combat. You'd still need to compress your ranges to get 3km encounters on a normal table but it should look sort of plausible.

- C.

[kato13]

I've never been able to get a group to try it, but I've always wanted to use micro armor (1:285 miniatures) for vehicle-focused combat. You'd still need to compress your ranges to get 3km encounters on a normal table but it should look sort of plausible.

- C.


If I had about 30 more D-30s and a ton more WW II cavalry I could simulate the entire battle of Kalisz in 1:285. I would need to rent out my local armory, but it would be fun :)

[Cdnwolf]

If I had about 30 more D-30s and a ton more WW II cavalry I could simulate the entire battle of Kalisz in 1:285. I would need to rent out my local armory, but it would be fun :)


That may be capable on Roll20.net with some fudging. Thats what I have been trying to work on.