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Characters in a battle
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smillan_31
Grandmaster Greytalker

Joined: Nov 07, 2004
Posts: 1846
From: Mt. Smolderac

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Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:18 pm  
Characters in a battle

Anyone have any experience running a scenario where the members of the party are taking part in a large scale battle?

If so, what worked? What didn't? Any other advice/experiences?

I'm thinking of doing something like a Sluys-type naval battle, with the party as part of an attacking fleet (the English) being the strike team that has to fight their way across a bunch of chained up enemy ships (the French) to "cut the head off the snake" aka kill the enemy commander on his flagship.

EDIT: This is GH-related in that I'm thinking of this as a conclusion to the Slavelords saga. Once the power of the Slaver Lords is broken you would still need to break the back of the pirates of Highport and Blue.
Sheepdog
Adept Greytalker

Joined: Apr 21, 2013
Posts: 381
From: Minnesota

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Sun Jun 26, 2016 9:04 pm  

I do not have much experience with that but I think your concept should work fairly well.

The large scale battle can ebb and flow around the small scale that is the adventurers making their way to the enemy leader.
aurdraco
Journeyman Greytalker

Joined: Jun 12, 2003
Posts: 273
From: Boston

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Mon Jun 27, 2016 9:28 am  

Back during Living Greyhawk, we had an interactive one time in which the PCs commanded small military units using the 3rd edition Minis rules. The players seemed to enjoy the change of pace.

In my Boston Pathfinder home-brew, one of the adventures features a bunch of summoned elementals attacking a small town. The PCs fought one group; then the players, as local NPCs, fought the remaining groups.
jamesdglick
Grandmaster Greytalker

Joined: Jul 09, 2003
Posts: 1371
From: Tennessee, between Ft. Campbell & APSU

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Sat Jul 02, 2016 6:41 am  
Re: Characters in a battle

smillan_31 wrote:
Anyone have any experience running a scenario where the members of the party are taking part in a large scale battle?

If so, what worked? What didn't? Any other advice/experiences?...


-The Battle of the Loftwood. Twice.

The first time, two new players started the 1st level PCs with Queg's band on Ratik's far left flank.

Trying to handle 25 northerners vs. 10 goblins and 151 hobgoblins (or something like that) took a lot of time because it was hard to break it down into a smaller package (or at least I did). So there was lots of thumb twiddling while the rest of the fight went on (I think "just making it up" is bogus, and tends to tempt the DM into deus ex machina or pre-conceived results).

You'd probably have an easier time keeping things under control since the PCs will be attacking one ship at a time. Of course, since the ships are chained together, you'll have to account for the ships to the left and right. Uh oh... Laughing

I'm currently handling my oldest player (with a new, 1st level PC) by phone and email. His unit took part in the initial ambush of the advanced guard and the bandits. Here, I figured everything else "off screen" and just found out what he wanted to do. Since he's an archer in the 3rd rank, this mostly consisted of target selection. ;) They're now on the advance. When I figure that out, I'll get back to him.

I forget which edition you use, but D&D 3.5 Heroes of Battle covers this topic. You could abstract "the rest of the battle" using miniature rules, if you go back that far. ;)
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