Yeah, but it shouldn't be. The other spell casting classes channel arcane energy from the Weave, or a deep ancestral secret, or unknowable gods, and having it just be the same thing as mixing eye of newt with toe of salamander taps into that same source of power, it cheapens the whole magical experience. It's just the most boring way to go about it that I can think of.
I get that they can't do much else because crafting rules are basically nonexistent, but that's not really a forgiving explanation.
Yeah, but it shouldn't be. The other spell casting classes channel arcane energy from the Weave, or a deep ancestral secret, or unknowable gods, and having it just be the same thing as mixing eye of newt with toe of salamander taps into that same source of power, it cheapens the whole magical experience. It's just the most boring way to go about it that I can think of.
I get that they can't do much else because crafting rules are basically nonexistent, but that's not really a forgiving explanation.
It's magic. I feel any argument hinging on "the magic doesn't make sense" is critically flawed. None of the ways any of those folks access magic makes sense, magic is nonsensical on its face.
The entire point of artificers is that they figure out bits of spells and "magical theory" and mix it with a little bit of item enchantment/technology/science to make the arcane magic happen, and you can flavor that towards how it transfers between the two liberally. Considering the alchemist doesn't get fireball but the artillerist does they could simply of crafted a makeshift wand that only works under the current lunar cycle to produce fireballs today or some shit, or they created a containment vessel for the guano and sulfur that when set into motion swings the proper runic sequences around the ingredients in a way the wizard would have while preparing the spell to hold till later completion the artificer's device just does it all at once as they pull a pin and toss the explosive device onto the battlefield.
Don't get too in the weeds of how magic works, down that path lies madness, and the worst kinds of TTRPG fights. Describing how magic works is generally where you do a lot of "yes and" and just figure out a thin means by which to backfill a window dressing on what's happening rather than insisting that magic must work in a consistent manner to justify what's happening.
I found a good RP way around that staff of Frost in COS
From the notebook of Farsik Fundlebrum
On Power:
The sniveling coward Vilnius was as myopic as his master. To consider that personal strength is the only source of power is idiotic in the extreme. Why spend the effort to cast spells myself, when I could employ the efforts of an army of spellcasters under my control.
Is a Paladin who wields pure radiance, and a rogue who deals death from the shadows who's goals have been aligned with myself not more powerful that simply murdering them and collecting their trinkets?
Powerful allies in their own right have a multiplicative effect towards my own goals. Once those goals are threatened, then they can be discarded for more useful pawns.
I'm considering having my D&D players visit an extraplanar market soon, one where devils are allowed to do business. GP is rarely accepted as a currency here, and usually gemstones are preferred. Though it's not strictly legal, souls are sometimes accepted as payment.
Soul Value
Uncommon: 100 - 500 GP
Rare: 501 - 5,000 GP
Very Rare: 5,001 - 50,000 GP
Legendary: 50,001+ GP
Common souls are rarely accepted, as the risk of being busted for soul trafficking isn't worth the value of some random bandit's soul. Even Uncommon souls don't get that many takers.
A character can also put up their own soul as collateral if they really need a magic item and don't mind risking their soul until they pay it off.
Obviously, using souls as currency is an evil act, and there may be some sort of karmic punishment awaiting those who freely do so.
One of my players wants his character to try and become part of Hell's nobility, and so far I haven't focused much on what getting in good in the Hells entails. Another one of the PCs is the Chaotic Evil type, so she might bite as well. The two might get busted by undercover celestials.
EDIT: To put a "good" spin on it, maybe you could sell magic items in exchange for souls and then try to get them resurrected? Or just try to expose the whole operation.
Alternatively, maybe some foolhardy enemies figure the PCs' souls would worth about 5000 GP a pop and try to ambush them.
I'd point out that selling your own soul probably isn't as bad an act. See: Faust.
I mostly like the picture of the evil jerks in the party selling their own souls, getting busted and then being let off because it was their own souls all while everybody looks on them like they're amazing idiots.
I do want to give the player whose character wants to rule in the Hells some kind of defining moment, one where they choose if they really want to ally themselves with devils or not. I just don't want it to be too evil.
So far the worst thing his character has done involved a sailing ship suffering from apparent sabotage. He gathered the whole crew on deck just so he could intimidate them with a Darkness and Fear combo, and once the saboteur (a disguised sea hag) was found tied her to the mast and stabbed her with a Shadow Blade in front of the crew to make an example.
Really it's been kinda hard figuring out how to motivate most of the party, storywise. The PCs are CN, CG, CE, LN, NG, and LE, so they're all over the place. I almost wonder if I should have just run an evil PC campaign. They're still fighting villains, but mostly just for the challenge and the loot. If an angel showed up most of them would probably want to fight it, too.
I do plan on having them meet Ben-Hadar, the supposed Good Prince of Elemental Water and notorious dick. I've set-up most of Ben-Hadar's followers as righteous paladin-types, so getting to meet their leader and finding out he's actually kind of a cynical asshole should be fun!
I do want to give the player whose character wants to rule in the Hells some kind of defining moment, one where they choose if they really want to ally themselves with devils or not. I just don't want it to be too evil.
So far the worst thing his character has done involved a sailing ship suffering from apparent sabotage. He gathered the whole crew on deck just so he could intimidate them with a Darkness and Fear combo, and once the saboteur (a disguised sea hag) was found tied her to the mast and stabbed her with a Shadow Blade in front of the crew to make an example.
Really it's been kinda hard figuring out how to motivate most of the party, storywise. The PCs are CN, CG, CE, LN, NG, and LE, so they're all over the place. I almost wonder if I should have just run an evil PC campaign. They're still fighting villains, but mostly just for the challenge and the loot. If an angel showed up most of them would probably want to fight it, too.
I do plan on having them meet Ben-Hadar, the supposed Good Prince of Elemental Water and notorious dick. I've set-up most of Ben-Hadar's followers as righteous paladin-types, so getting to meet their leader and finding out he's actually kind of a cynical asshole should be fun!
Do your players actually put much stock in alignment? You don't have to worrry about it much if your players don't...
I mean, sounds like maybe you should just set up situations where they either have to do the good thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons. Make them choose to slide on the scale a bit.
So far the worst thing his character has done involved a sailing ship suffering from apparent sabotage. He gathered the whole crew on deck just so he could intimidate them with a Darkness and Fear combo, and once the saboteur (a disguised sea hag) was found tied her to the mast and stabbed her with a Shadow Blade in front of the crew to make an example.
Isn't this...technically the exact opposite of a combo? The thing that grants additional chances to save against Fear is not being able to see the caster.
Really it's been kinda hard figuring out how to motivate most of the party, storywise. The PCs are CN, CG, CE, LN, NG, and LE, so they're all over the place. I almost wonder if I should have just run an evil PC campaign. They're still fighting villains, but mostly just for the challenge and the loot. If an angel showed up most of them would probably want to fight it, too.
If you can, get NPCs from their backgrounds and involve them somehow. An evil character should be perfectly on board with doing Good things if it means helping someone they value/fucking over someone they have a grudge against, and the reverse probably applies to some extent as well, although it may be more of a high-tension moral choice than an enthusiastic enlistment. Once you get some in-campaign NPCs the party particularly likes/hates, you can use them that way too.
So far the worst thing his character has done involved a sailing ship suffering from apparent sabotage. He gathered the whole crew on deck just so he could intimidate them with a Darkness and Fear combo, and once the saboteur (a disguised sea hag) was found tied her to the mast and stabbed her with a Shadow Blade in front of the crew to make an example.
Isn't this...technically the exact opposite of a combo? The thing that grants additional chances to save against Fear is not being able to see the caster.
True, but I'd assume suddenly being unable to see and hit with a wave of supernatural dread would be really terrifying for a bit.
I have not. But in my experience I have found that focusing on the party, in a more typical encounter, while the huge battle rages on in the background is the way to go. That way the action stays on the party at all times. And I've been thinking to use this for a while, but I haven't done it yet: A a good idea I think would be to have the battlefield itself have lair actions! Actions that are thematically tied to this encounter being had in the middle of a pitched battle.
Example: The party pushes through a break in the line, the noble defenders of the Kingdom opening a hole in the Orc Horde. Sub-Commander Tusktooth and his elite bodyguards rush to plug the line. If the players can keep this breach open and slay the leader, this battle will be won for the good guys. If the party loses? The Horde will plug the gap and their superior numbers will carry the day. And then an awesome boss battle occurs! On initiative count 20, something cool happens like an errant catapult ball lands, or a riderless warhorse charges through, or a volley of arrows drops, or something that like that that effects both the party and the bad guys equally to represent the chaos of war.
I realize that this does not answer your question at all, but I wanted to opine.
The 3.5 supplement Heroes of Battle basically goes in-depth on how to run things like @Steelhawk said, and it's the best way I've found to run RPG mass battles.
For smaller, skirmish-level stuff, I've found using whatever variant of Mob or "team" rules your system has works well.
Those rules don't seem like ways to have your players participate all that much. Its also... hella complicated.
So you've got "stands" which are groups of 10 units that occupy a 20x20 square. And these are grouped into Units which compose of any number of stands... Initiative acts on the Units turn where in each stand in the unit acts. Stands can be isolated from their units to give advantages and disadvantages. Units have different types which give them advantages and disadvantages and change how the isolation rules work
Solo's (monsters/players) can attach themselves to stands but not units and be commanders of those stands. Solo's go on the initiative of the stand they're attached to if they're attached to one and ? if not. Except if they're attached then they move with the stand they're attached to and act on their own initiative.
Stands live and die as one unit and damage transfers across stands when you knock them out. A stand of humans soldiers has 8 HP and if they take 9 damage they're a casualty at 1 HP... all 10 of them. And you get to do 1 extra damage to another stand in the unit nearby... which might be out of your attack range and this may or may not matter? At least stands that are casualties get to act until the end of the round.
Solo's die as normal... which means that if you go down at the end of a round as a solo you make 10 death saves in a row to see if you survive. If you're low in initiative you're just plain boned no one can help you.
Units that lose half their stands make moral checks to continue fighting...
There are, in addition to driving the enemy form the field, victor points... which are entirely freeform up to the DM except that one side wins when it gets 10. Why? Who knows?
Combat is weirdly small and huge at the same time. A combat between 300 soldiers with a 4 player party requires 34 miniatures and a massive grid. Now 300 units is a lot but its not exactly "mass combat" in any scalable way. The more you scale the more hilariously strong the solos become.
_____________
Things i like:
I like how solos are most definitely heroes as their stats are flat out magnified by 10(or however many units of soldiers you want in each stand). Each stand as the HP of a single member creature and so a Solo has their damage and HP magnified by 10.
I like the idea of isolation. So that you can actually have strategy in a fight, no clue if it works out. Isolation seems unreasonably strong though since you get advantage and double damage plus the defenders get disadvantage. There also doesn't seem to be a mechanic where two isolated stands are fighting each other.
I can see how this could be useful for a big end game set piece. You would probably want to mess with the scale and ensure that each player got their own unit to mess around with though.
Things i don't like:
"A bit of bookkeeping on the side is also recommended." Uh huh. My 30 mini combat with 6 separate initiative counts for which 5 mini's compose one of the 6 initiatives and for which i must figure out the abilities off all of those creatures/monsters and the relations of each mini to its unit and each solo to potentially multiple units requires "a bit of bookkeeping". More like bookkeeping hell.
In an actual DND game this seems like a lot of DM masturbation. There are going to be a lot of units making attacks against other units and maybe the players are in control but maybe they're not. For a general "big battle" a small battle that matters with "Stuff happening on varying initiative counts" seems like its a better idea.
I feel like building out units as simplified characters (applying a bit of Fate Fractal methodology) is the right approach here
basically use character combat math, reskin the basic combat actions, then apply a little logic to the rest. attach PCs to different units and give them buffs, let the players control the whole unit, bam you're off to the races
I feel like building out units as simplified characters (applying a bit of Fate Fractal methodology) is the right approach here
basically use character combat math, reskin the basic combat actions, then apply a little logic to the rest. attach PCs to different units and give them buffs, let the players control the whole unit, bam you're off to the races
That is more or less what they do. But that doesn't work out as well as it would seem in practice because combats don't feel big
My objective is to have something like the siege from The Banner Saga 3, where the heroes must fend off an encroaching force long enough for a ritual to be completed. The better they perform the fewer casualties and the greater reward. I also want to have a few very strong monsters attack, ones that should be too powerful for the PCs to handle safely in a normal fight, meaning that they need to utilize their units and siege weapons to at least soften the target up first before finishing it off. Alternatively, some enemies raise the PCs' fallen soldiers as undead to add to their own ranks, so destroying these targets would take priority.
I feel like it'd be much easier to do hordes as a monster that takes up less area as its HP depletes and gets bonus actions based on how much HP it has left. A lot of the bonus actions are just like "engulf guy" or "take target point and get advantages".
Ehhh, I want to make it a bit more complex than that. One reason is because I thought I could bring back a few NPCs the players haven't seen in a while to help lead their forces.
I'm thinking somewhere around Advance Wars in terms of complexity and abstraction.
So I was thinking that the enemy forces could establish a field base for a unit of necromancers (about 10) that would serve as one of the primary targets in a mass battle since the necromancers could collect downed units to transform into zombies.
I did some math to see how effective a unit of ten NPC necromancers would be if they used all their spell slots for Animate Dead and had both the resources and the assistance to cast it once per minute. Turns out that, provided they had enough corpses on hand, they could hypothetically all burn through all their spell slots in only 9 minutes and produce 290 zombies!
My objective is to have something like the siege from The Banner Saga 3, where the heroes must fend off an encroaching force long enough for a ritual to be completed. The better they perform the fewer casualties and the greater reward. I also want to have a few very strong monsters attack, ones that should be too powerful for the PCs to handle safely in a normal fight, meaning that they need to utilize their units and siege weapons to at least soften the target up first before finishing it off. Alternatively, some enemies raise the PCs' fallen soldiers as undead to add to their own ranks, so destroying these targets would take priority.
Tiered levels of encounters, ramping up and down in difficulty. Some mook zombies, then some necromancers, back down to ghouls, up to Ogre zombie "siege units", and so on and so forth. The PC's have their battles and you make sure to describe that all of the allied forces down the line are also fending off the baddies. And on various initiative counts, the lair actions can occur... an arrow volley from the PC's allies on 20, and the spontaneous raising of 1d6 skeletons on count 10, etc. In between encounters, have your NPC's come by and give the party support in healing, or extra scrolls and potions, buffing spells to keep them hearty in this running gauntlet of a fight.
Party is about to face an invisible death tyrant in a room of sticky goo with a big magnet that sucks up their metal objects
Party consists of 5 level 10 players, a level 10 wizard npc (who has player levels, because she was played by a player who was temporarily dead), Xandala the sorceress who is CR 7, a Drow Mage (cr5) they freed from a mirror, a Champion (!) they freed from the same mirror, a Minotaur, and a Doppleganger they freed from the mirror
the bard also has a CR 1 sidekick from a deck from not as many things who does one useful thing in combat (channel divinity: guided strike) but otherwise will make a good sponge for a single beam and need to be brought back to life later
I have no fucking idea if this fight is balanced, I suspect the death tyrant is going to get its invisibility dispelled in turn one by somebody, and then killed before two turns have elapsed, im not sure if I should make the fight harder... The party ran into Fenthaza of the Yuan-Ti earlier but avoided her, I've realized for a while she's going to not be a challenge for the party despite the fact that they have her set up in their heads as a big boss encounter and REALLY HATE HER because she tortured all of them and imprisoned them and flayed a prisoner in front of them - Maybe her and two of her nightmare speakers join the fray on the beholder's side after 2 turns? After all the party just looted the Black Opal Crown and that's totally her thing
override367 on
0
Options
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Party is about to face an invisible death tyrant in a room of sticky goo with a big magnet that sucks up their metal objects
Party consists of 5 level 10 players, a level 10 wizard npc (who has player levels, because she was played by a player who was temporarily dead), Xandala the sorceress who is CR 7, a Drow Mage (cr5) they freed from a mirror, a Champion (!) they freed from the same mirror, a Minotaur, and a Doppleganger they freed from the mirror
the bard also has a CR 1 sidekick from a deck from not as many things who does one useful thing in combat (channel divinity: guided strike) but otherwise will make a good sponge for a single beam and need to be brought back to life later
I have no fucking idea if this fight is balanced, I suspect the death tyrant is going to get its invisibility dispelled in turn one by somebody, and then killed before two turns have elapsed, im not sure if I should make the fight harder... The party ran into Fenthaza of the Yuan-Ti earlier but avoided her, I've realized for a while she's going to not be a challenge for the party despite the fact that they have her set up in their heads as a big boss encounter and REALLY HATE HER because she tortured all of them and imprisoned them and flayed a prisoner in front of them - Maybe her and two of her nightmare speakers join the fray on the beholder's side after 2 turns? After all the party just looted the Black Opal Crown and that's totally her thing
Don't be afraid to have easy fights coded as hard
Have the players wiped the floor with anything recently?
Party is about to face an invisible death tyrant in a room of sticky goo with a big magnet that sucks up their metal objects
Party consists of 5 level 10 players, a level 10 wizard npc (who has player levels, because she was played by a player who was temporarily dead), Xandala the sorceress who is CR 7, a Drow Mage (cr5) they freed from a mirror, a Champion (!) they freed from the same mirror, a Minotaur, and a Doppleganger they freed from the mirror
the bard also has a CR 1 sidekick from a deck from not as many things who does one useful thing in combat (channel divinity: guided strike) but otherwise will make a good sponge for a single beam and need to be brought back to life later
I have no fucking idea if this fight is balanced, I suspect the death tyrant is going to get its invisibility dispelled in turn one by somebody, and then killed before two turns have elapsed, im not sure if I should make the fight harder... The party ran into Fenthaza of the Yuan-Ti earlier but avoided her, I've realized for a while she's going to not be a challenge for the party despite the fact that they have her set up in their heads as a big boss encounter and REALLY HATE HER because she tortured all of them and imprisoned them and flayed a prisoner in front of them - Maybe her and two of her nightmare speakers join the fray on the beholder's side after 2 turns? After all the party just looted the Black Opal Crown and that's totally her thing
Don't be afraid to have easy fights coded as hard
Have the players wiped the floor with anything recently?
yes, everything in the first four levels of tomb of the nine gods, when they're not sticking their genitals into razor blades or spheres of annihilation anyway
Oh! They failed to kill Withers (Tomb architect), but did assault and taunt him, he used his Amulet of the Black Skull to teleport away. Him showing up to assist the beholder would make perfect sense without me asspulling anything, since they disrespected him, robbed his office, and tried to kill him just a few short hours ago ingame. They even stole his spellbook from the hidden place in his desk, so he's probably a bit salty. He's not particularly powerful but ... you know I could have him and a pair of his flesh golems show up as they step through the doors, have their cavalcade of NPCs rush back out to "Deal with him, you kill the beholder!" so its just players vs death tyrant*
or players and Dao if they make a compelling argument for the obstinate princess turned cloud of sand that's following them to help
*The possibility of the Drow and the Doppleganger turning on the party is something suggested in their flavor text as well
Fenthaza on the other hand, I can live with her being coded as hard but turn out to be a joke, however this beholder is supposed to be the opposite: they suspect its going to be a joke but it's supposed to be a N-I-G-H-T-M-A-R-E
Stuff I'm planning for the big fight in my next session:
- The villain, a wizard, has Mage Armor and Flame Shield (Cool Shield) pre-cast.
- Two special magic circles are present. One adds +2 to AC, the other duplicates the Empowered Spell feature of the sorcerer class except it goes off of the Int modifier. Other characters can benefit from this if they enter the circles.
- Two Danse Macabre spell glyphs are on the ceiling near some sarcophagi. The villain can activate these with separate pass phrases to create new minions behind the party.
- Two elemental myrmidons guard the villain, and a demon ready to pounce is hidden in a small tunnel dug out of the cliff the villain and his myrmidons are standing on.
- Should the villain look to be losing he uncovers a hidden pit that contains a chute, allowing him to slide down it to the other opening of the tunnel at the base of the cliff.
I went to garycon and spent 200 bucks on minis send help
To like, carry them? It sounds like you're getting the proper garycon experience.
We had to unbox all 18 boxes in the lobby because carrying those around was not going to happen. We condensed them down to 6 boxes and split them among us
im going back tomorrow to buy some kobold press books and t-shirts
my credit card company will probably send a thank you letter to wizards of the coast by the end of it
I have a male and female of every type of giant, no repeats from the boxes, as well as a fire giant dreadnought, this will help since we're going to Storm King's Thunder after this, since that is really easy to turn into a higher level campaign (just give the giants more abilities, superiority dice, magic spells, ram abilities like the Goristro for hill giants, etc)
override367 on
+2
Options
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Posts
I get that they can't do much else because crafting rules are basically nonexistent, but that's not really a forgiving explanation.
It's magic. I feel any argument hinging on "the magic doesn't make sense" is critically flawed. None of the ways any of those folks access magic makes sense, magic is nonsensical on its face.
The entire point of artificers is that they figure out bits of spells and "magical theory" and mix it with a little bit of item enchantment/technology/science to make the arcane magic happen, and you can flavor that towards how it transfers between the two liberally. Considering the alchemist doesn't get fireball but the artillerist does they could simply of crafted a makeshift wand that only works under the current lunar cycle to produce fireballs today or some shit, or they created a containment vessel for the guano and sulfur that when set into motion swings the proper runic sequences around the ingredients in a way the wizard would have while preparing the spell to hold till later completion the artificer's device just does it all at once as they pull a pin and toss the explosive device onto the battlefield.
Don't get too in the weeds of how magic works, down that path lies madness, and the worst kinds of TTRPG fights. Describing how magic works is generally where you do a lot of "yes and" and just figure out a thin means by which to backfill a window dressing on what's happening rather than insisting that magic must work in a consistent manner to justify what's happening.
From the notebook of Farsik Fundlebrum
The sniveling coward Vilnius was as myopic as his master. To consider that personal strength is the only source of power is idiotic in the extreme. Why spend the effort to cast spells myself, when I could employ the efforts of an army of spellcasters under my control.
Is a Paladin who wields pure radiance, and a rogue who deals death from the shadows who's goals have been aligned with myself not more powerful that simply murdering them and collecting their trinkets?
Powerful allies in their own right have a multiplicative effect towards my own goals. Once those goals are threatened, then they can be discarded for more useful pawns.
Dungeons & dad jokes
Murder hubbies
Father figurines
Questers with curfews
My house, my house-rules!
Dungeons and Dadgons
Father Minifigures
Daddy20
Male Roll Models
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I kept dex at 12, so there is something there...
Soul Value
Uncommon: 100 - 500 GP
Rare: 501 - 5,000 GP
Very Rare: 5,001 - 50,000 GP
Legendary: 50,001+ GP
Common souls are rarely accepted, as the risk of being busted for soul trafficking isn't worth the value of some random bandit's soul. Even Uncommon souls don't get that many takers.
A character can also put up their own soul as collateral if they really need a magic item and don't mind risking their soul until they pay it off.
Obviously, using souls as currency is an evil act, and there may be some sort of karmic punishment awaiting those who freely do so.
One of my players wants his character to try and become part of Hell's nobility, and so far I haven't focused much on what getting in good in the Hells entails. Another one of the PCs is the Chaotic Evil type, so she might bite as well. The two might get busted by undercover celestials.
EDIT: To put a "good" spin on it, maybe you could sell magic items in exchange for souls and then try to get them resurrected? Or just try to expose the whole operation.
Alternatively, maybe some foolhardy enemies figure the PCs' souls would worth about 5000 GP a pop and try to ambush them.
I mostly like the picture of the evil jerks in the party selling their own souls, getting busted and then being let off because it was their own souls all while everybody looks on them like they're amazing idiots.
So far the worst thing his character has done involved a sailing ship suffering from apparent sabotage. He gathered the whole crew on deck just so he could intimidate them with a Darkness and Fear combo, and once the saboteur (a disguised sea hag) was found tied her to the mast and stabbed her with a Shadow Blade in front of the crew to make an example.
Really it's been kinda hard figuring out how to motivate most of the party, storywise. The PCs are CN, CG, CE, LN, NG, and LE, so they're all over the place. I almost wonder if I should have just run an evil PC campaign. They're still fighting villains, but mostly just for the challenge and the loot. If an angel showed up most of them would probably want to fight it, too.
I do plan on having them meet Ben-Hadar, the supposed Good Prince of Elemental Water and notorious dick. I've set-up most of Ben-Hadar's followers as righteous paladin-types, so getting to meet their leader and finding out he's actually kind of a cynical asshole should be fun!
Do your players actually put much stock in alignment? You don't have to worrry about it much if your players don't...
Isn't this...technically the exact opposite of a combo? The thing that grants additional chances to save against Fear is not being able to see the caster.
If you can, get NPCs from their backgrounds and involve them somehow. An evil character should be perfectly on board with doing Good things if it means helping someone they value/fucking over someone they have a grudge against, and the reverse probably applies to some extent as well, although it may be more of a high-tension moral choice than an enthusiastic enlistment. Once you get some in-campaign NPCs the party particularly likes/hates, you can use them that way too.
True, but I'd assume suddenly being unable to see and hit with a wave of supernatural dread would be really terrifying for a bit.
Unearthed Arcana: When Armies Clash
Example: The party pushes through a break in the line, the noble defenders of the Kingdom opening a hole in the Orc Horde. Sub-Commander Tusktooth and his elite bodyguards rush to plug the line. If the players can keep this breach open and slay the leader, this battle will be won for the good guys. If the party loses? The Horde will plug the gap and their superior numbers will carry the day. And then an awesome boss battle occurs! On initiative count 20, something cool happens like an errant catapult ball lands, or a riderless warhorse charges through, or a volley of arrows drops, or something that like that that effects both the party and the bad guys equally to represent the chaos of war.
I realize that this does not answer your question at all, but I wanted to opine.
For smaller, skirmish-level stuff, I've found using whatever variant of Mob or "team" rules your system has works well.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
i see what you did @Steelhawk
So you've got "stands" which are groups of 10 units that occupy a 20x20 square. And these are grouped into Units which compose of any number of stands... Initiative acts on the Units turn where in each stand in the unit acts. Stands can be isolated from their units to give advantages and disadvantages. Units have different types which give them advantages and disadvantages and change how the isolation rules work
Solo's (monsters/players) can attach themselves to stands but not units and be commanders of those stands. Solo's go on the initiative of the stand they're attached to if they're attached to one and ? if not. Except if they're attached then they move with the stand they're attached to and act on their own initiative.
Stands live and die as one unit and damage transfers across stands when you knock them out. A stand of humans soldiers has 8 HP and if they take 9 damage they're a casualty at 1 HP... all 10 of them. And you get to do 1 extra damage to another stand in the unit nearby... which might be out of your attack range and this may or may not matter? At least stands that are casualties get to act until the end of the round.
Solo's die as normal... which means that if you go down at the end of a round as a solo you make 10 death saves in a row to see if you survive. If you're low in initiative you're just plain boned no one can help you.
Units that lose half their stands make moral checks to continue fighting...
There are, in addition to driving the enemy form the field, victor points... which are entirely freeform up to the DM except that one side wins when it gets 10. Why? Who knows?
Combat is weirdly small and huge at the same time. A combat between 300 soldiers with a 4 player party requires 34 miniatures and a massive grid. Now 300 units is a lot but its not exactly "mass combat" in any scalable way. The more you scale the more hilariously strong the solos become.
_____________
Things i like:
I like how solos are most definitely heroes as their stats are flat out magnified by 10(or however many units of soldiers you want in each stand). Each stand as the HP of a single member creature and so a Solo has their damage and HP magnified by 10.
I like the idea of isolation. So that you can actually have strategy in a fight, no clue if it works out. Isolation seems unreasonably strong though since you get advantage and double damage plus the defenders get disadvantage. There also doesn't seem to be a mechanic where two isolated stands are fighting each other.
I can see how this could be useful for a big end game set piece. You would probably want to mess with the scale and ensure that each player got their own unit to mess around with though.
Things i don't like:
"A bit of bookkeeping on the side is also recommended." Uh huh. My 30 mini combat with 6 separate initiative counts for which 5 mini's compose one of the 6 initiatives and for which i must figure out the abilities off all of those creatures/monsters and the relations of each mini to its unit and each solo to potentially multiple units requires "a bit of bookkeeping". More like bookkeeping hell.
In an actual DND game this seems like a lot of DM masturbation. There are going to be a lot of units making attacks against other units and maybe the players are in control but maybe they're not. For a general "big battle" a small battle that matters with "Stuff happening on varying initiative counts" seems like its a better idea.
basically use character combat math, reskin the basic combat actions, then apply a little logic to the rest. attach PCs to different units and give them buffs, let the players control the whole unit, bam you're off to the races
Much more of a fan of the Warfare rules from Strongholds & Followers.
That is more or less what they do. But that doesn't work out as well as it would seem in practice because combats don't feel big
I'm thinking somewhere around Advance Wars in terms of complexity and abstraction.
I did some math to see how effective a unit of ten NPC necromancers would be if they used all their spell slots for Animate Dead and had both the resources and the assistance to cast it once per minute. Turns out that, provided they had enough corpses on hand, they could hypothetically all burn through all their spell slots in only 9 minutes and produce 290 zombies!
Tiered levels of encounters, ramping up and down in difficulty. Some mook zombies, then some necromancers, back down to ghouls, up to Ogre zombie "siege units", and so on and so forth. The PC's have their battles and you make sure to describe that all of the allied forces down the line are also fending off the baddies. And on various initiative counts, the lair actions can occur... an arrow volley from the PC's allies on 20, and the spontaneous raising of 1d6 skeletons on count 10, etc. In between encounters, have your NPC's come by and give the party support in healing, or extra scrolls and potions, buffing spells to keep them hearty in this running gauntlet of a fight.
Party is about to face an invisible death tyrant in a room of sticky goo with a big magnet that sucks up their metal objects
Party consists of 5 level 10 players, a level 10 wizard npc (who has player levels, because she was played by a player who was temporarily dead), Xandala the sorceress who is CR 7, a Drow Mage (cr5) they freed from a mirror, a Champion (!) they freed from the same mirror, a Minotaur, and a Doppleganger they freed from the mirror
the bard also has a CR 1 sidekick from a deck from not as many things who does one useful thing in combat (channel divinity: guided strike) but otherwise will make a good sponge for a single beam and need to be brought back to life later
I have no fucking idea if this fight is balanced, I suspect the death tyrant is going to get its invisibility dispelled in turn one by somebody, and then killed before two turns have elapsed, im not sure if I should make the fight harder... The party ran into Fenthaza of the Yuan-Ti earlier but avoided her, I've realized for a while she's going to not be a challenge for the party despite the fact that they have her set up in their heads as a big boss encounter and REALLY HATE HER because she tortured all of them and imprisoned them and flayed a prisoner in front of them - Maybe her and two of her nightmare speakers join the fray on the beholder's side after 2 turns? After all the party just looted the Black Opal Crown and that's totally her thing
Don't be afraid to have easy fights coded as hard
Have the players wiped the floor with anything recently?
yes, everything in the first four levels of tomb of the nine gods, when they're not sticking their genitals into razor blades or spheres of annihilation anyway
Oh! They failed to kill Withers (Tomb architect), but did assault and taunt him, he used his Amulet of the Black Skull to teleport away. Him showing up to assist the beholder would make perfect sense without me asspulling anything, since they disrespected him, robbed his office, and tried to kill him just a few short hours ago ingame. They even stole his spellbook from the hidden place in his desk, so he's probably a bit salty. He's not particularly powerful but ... you know I could have him and a pair of his flesh golems show up as they step through the doors, have their cavalcade of NPCs rush back out to "Deal with him, you kill the beholder!" so its just players vs death tyrant*
or players and Dao if they make a compelling argument for the obstinate princess turned cloud of sand that's following them to help
*The possibility of the Drow and the Doppleganger turning on the party is something suggested in their flavor text as well
- The villain, a wizard, has Mage Armor and Flame Shield (Cool Shield) pre-cast.
- Two special magic circles are present. One adds +2 to AC, the other duplicates the Empowered Spell feature of the sorcerer class except it goes off of the Int modifier. Other characters can benefit from this if they enter the circles.
- Two Danse Macabre spell glyphs are on the ceiling near some sarcophagi. The villain can activate these with separate pass phrases to create new minions behind the party.
- Two elemental myrmidons guard the villain, and a demon ready to pounce is hidden in a small tunnel dug out of the cliff the villain and his myrmidons are standing on.
- Should the villain look to be losing he uncovers a hidden pit that contains a chute, allowing him to slide down it to the other opening of the tunnel at the base of the cliff.
To like, carry them? It sounds like you're getting the proper garycon experience.
This is entirely why I do not dip my toes into minis or terrain and whatnot. So. Much. Money.
Also, giant pain in the ass to transport everything if game night is not at your place.
We had to unbox all 18 boxes in the lobby because carrying those around was not going to happen. We condensed them down to 6 boxes and split them among us
im going back tomorrow to buy some kobold press books and t-shirts
my credit card company will probably send a thank you letter to wizards of the coast by the end of it
I have a male and female of every type of giant, no repeats from the boxes, as well as a fire giant dreadnought, this will help since we're going to Storm King's Thunder after this, since that is really easy to turn into a higher level campaign (just give the giants more abilities, superiority dice, magic spells, ram abilities like the Goristro for hill giants, etc)
The party I DM for had to actively stop their Dwarven Fighter from punching him to death.