Now the question is, what kind of ideas can we come up with to possibly run a game like this? I know Urik has a very strong military, so Urik would be an obvious good first choice. It would also give a good reason to have Templars, Templar Knights, etc etc (maybe some of the classes off of Xlorep's site, like his Athasian paladin would be perfect). But the current status quo of the Tablelands doesn't scream "Hey let's have a war!" because it's simply not economical, let alone really feasable to go to war at this point. The SK's simply have too much to loose at this juncture. Dregoth ascending, many of their numbers now dead thanks to the heroes out of Tyr and Rajaat's brief escape, etc etc.
Just curious what the community here has to say about a military style campaign set in our favorite god-forsaken planet?
-X
In the Prism Pentad Hamanu quickly makes a bid for Tyr's empty throne by sending an army.
Since the Dragon and many a SK are dead, another SK (or Draj's Atzetuk) might make the same attempt Hamanu did.
Just decide that one city-state (one with a SK, or Draj) is making a war of aquisition on its kingless neighbor, starting with that city's client villages.
Too bad my campaign doesn't at all follow the normal timeline...*ponders whistfully*
Sorry for bad language, im not english speaking.
During year of the Dragon agitation.
PC were hired by the Balic explorer merchant league to explore the Forked tongue peninsula and map all village and encounter. So we had here a couple of game of exploration in this region. They discovred three separate slave-tribe (ex slave) village hidden in the desert. When they came back to Balic, and were forced to make there report (to king Androponis himself, a good way to scare the PC), they discovered the exploration was just a scouting operation to track slave-tribe village before Androponis send his army to conquer them and bring new slave for the Dragon levy. The war plan also consisted of capturing the population of South leopoldus, Grak pool, and an elfe tribe wandering the region. Since the PC knew the truth, the templar sentenced them to the Criterrion. So the Pc had to survive the arena of Balic while trying to find a way of escaping and prevent the free village of being invaded. They escaped and made there way in the desert, with nothing this time, having to use what they remembered of there last exploration one month ago (oasis location, dangerous place to avoid). There plan naturally was to unite all free village against the Androponis legion, and they had only one month to accomplish this. Each village had a sub-plot with it, and difficulties to rally them to the cause. One village was under attack by raider belgoi, another was controlled by a Balican templar spy who tryed to portray the PC as danger to the village. The third had water problem and the people were almost starving. The PC had to find ressources for the war effort. They made a journey to Ledo Island to trade giant hair (for armor). Of course, they had to find something to trade. One had a brillant idea. He had the artist skill and was a mage, so he casted burning hand on the sand (making glass), and then, made artistic sculpture for the giant of Ledo island. They also had a choice between either a flint carry on Ledo island, a giant Silt worm skeleton near Grak pool, an old ship wreck near Siren song island (stuffed with metal weapons), and an obsidian mine near Leopoldus. Each of these place could provide weapons for there army, but they were short on time and men, so they could only exploit one of these place (they choosed the easiest, the giant skeleton, so there army were fitted with bone weapons).
They also tryed to ally with the local Pyreen, and the surrounding Giant tribe, convincing them to fight against Androponis (they failed in the case of the Giant).
Finally, there army was ready on time and they could march against the Balician army who was coming close. So the PC army marched, with a heavy dwarf infantry squad from Leopoldus, light skirmisher from the elfe tribe, the guard of Grak pool and irregular pikeman from the three slave village, for a grand total of about 950 underequiped troop.
Against them, 1000 balicans slave-hoplite, 3 squad of 50 half-giant clubber, two armored war-mekillot with howdah, siege engine and a line of 100 Templar pushing this army in the back with magic and whip.
This campaign ended with a big epic battle, and the PC succesfully repeled the invading Balic army, using good tactics, scarce troop and magic. The war-mékillot are specially fun for battlescene alla LOTR; Return of the king (the elephant).
This campaign was really fun. It took 3 month of gameplay with 6 hours session every friday. The gearing up part was especially fun.
BTW Pringles, your english is getting better :D , and like always you have great adventure/campaign ideas.
Bam! Instant fight-the-kreen-militant campaign. :D
You could start small, having the PCs encounter Kreen scouts or at the receiving end of a very well organised raid on an outpost or caravan somewhere to the south of the Tablelands. The PCs notice that the kreen are unusual (different coloured carapace) and that they try to take live captives.
(I'd interleave this with other adventures so that things slowly dawn on the players that something big is happening)
They hear rumours of other raids over the next few weeks/months, wagons and outposts take on extra guards. Then a larger raid/assault on a small town and instead of leaving the kreen dig in using burrowing creatures to create a hive.
A large mercenary force is sent to retake the town, then slowly escalate it up or have the PCs go and stealthily spy on the kreen, enough to witness the first kreen settlements/outposts springing up....
You could have lots of fun, possibly ending in a stalemate as the kreen reveal increasingly powerful warriors and leaders, until an SK gets involved, particularly Hammanu.
(having spent far too much time thinking about this :D )
Dark Sun was originally developed in 2E to be relatively all-inclusive of a bunch of "optional" rules, including the 2E mass-combat system. So bringing such an element into Dark Sun is not too difficult or outlandish :P.
Using the mass-combat rules from the Miniatures Handbook, I've done the Kreen Invasion, as well as an invasion from the Deadlands, and even had an attack from Dregoth and his Dray army once.
I've been wondering, how is the Miniatures system? Hard to learn? Good? Requires umpteen million figurines? How does it handle magic? And so forth
PC's could be a spies of Hamanu trying to start uprising of some sort, or other sabotage in Tyr. Smugglers bringing food to dying city mayby? What you think about such an idea?
I've been wondering, how is the Miniatures system? Hard to learn? Good? Requires umpteen million figurines? How does it handle magic? And so forth
It's a mass-combat system. I can see the connection to the old system TSR had somewhat. Things are a bit more simplified than the normal d20 mechanics, and like any mass-combat system, you probably will be desiring many, many minis (fortunately for me, I have multiple minis, as I also paint/play Warhammer Fantasy). It's functional.
It's a mass-combat system. I can see the connection to the old system TSR had somewhat. Things are a bit more simplified than the normal d20 mechanics, and like any mass-combat system, you probably will be desiring many, many minis (fortunately for me, I have multiple minis, as I also paint/play Warhammer Fantasy). It's functional.
2e Battlesystem
SImply supplement the ogres as half-giants, armored knights with crodlu-mounted elite tyrian warriors, peasents are slaves, dwarves are muls and here we go. As for the magic from the Birthright system we defined that once in every 5 rounds of combat the SKs would impart onto their templar generals one of those mass-slaughter spells ala Meteor swarm, swamps, undead armies, etc.
Very adaptable to DS!
A good starting scenario for a war campaign would be to have pterran embassadors from Lost Scale beseech the Council of Tyr for aid due to increased kreen hostility from the western lands. The council would send some of Tyr's gladiator army (along with the PCs) to the pterran settlement in order to strengthen their relationship with Lost Scale.
Bam! Instant fight-the-kreen-militant campaign. :D
Ah, great idea. I'm currently running the adventure from the revised boxed set so their goal is to REACH lost scale. I can just continue with that idea in mind. Thanks!
Requires umpteen million figurines?
You may use them. Or simple sheets of paper instead. Just like in Battlesystem - do you remember these stands and all?
Ah, great idea. I'm currently running the adventure from the revised boxed set so their goal is to REACH lost scale. I can just continue with that idea in mind. Thanks!
Not a problem. I actually ran something simliar for my games yrs ago using 2e battlesystem except that it was invading dray legions occupying Lost Scale as a staging point to attack Tyr. The PCs were sent along with Rikus and part of the Tyrian army to drive out the invading forces of Dregoth.
During the course of the conflict a horde of thri-kreen attacked both dray and Tyrian forces. This caused the dray and Tyrain armies to grudgingly ally with one another in order to combat the larger kreen numbers. In the end, the kreen were driven back and the dray army's commander pulled his forces out of Lost Scale as a token of respect and honor for the short lived dray and Tyrian alliance.
Goodtimes
You may use them. Or simple sheets of paper instead. Just like in Battlesystem - do you remember these stands and all?
Yeah, I remember Battlesystem - not exactly a favorite of mine, if memory serves (it's been around 15 years since I used it...). The Cry Havoc system that Kamelion mentioned seemed nice. And the Birthright system - I personally didn't like that at all, but that might be me
Thanks for the feedback!
Yeah, I remember Battlesystem - not exactly a favorite of mine, if memory serves (it's been around 15 years since I used it...). The Cry Havoc system that Kamelion mentioned seemed nice. And the Birthright system - I personally didn't like that at all, but that might be me
Thanks for the feedback!
We played out the gith vs slave tribe battle while doing the Blackspine adventure using the miniatures handbook rules. The numbers involved were about 250 vs 150 plus the various characters and heros and with a 1 figure to 1 PC/NPC mapping it went well but I wouldn't like to have gone much larger without some sort of scaling. I also have cry havoc which uses a single figure to represent multiple creatures and should scale well to large battles. Hero's of battle offers some great alternatives for standard adventuring right in the middle of the war zone, doing missions such as taking the hill, stopping a supply chain or assassination of an enemy commander
I used the Cry Havoc system from Malhavoc when I ran the war between Tyr and Urik. It's customisable on all sorts of levels, allowing for fast and loose play, skirmishing, detailed tactical battles or even full-scale battle royales with thousands of troops on each side. It can be used with miniatures but doesn't require them - the largest scale system in the book is somewhat reminiscent of the cool mass battle system from the D&D Cyclopedia rules (called "War Machine" or something, iirc). I found it to be more satisfying and easier to tweak to my needs than the rules from the Miniatures Handbook.
I agree - I looked over several mass combat systems and finally settled on Cry Havoc as well. It requires some tweaking/creative use of the rules to get spellcasters/psionicists to work effectively with the system (I attach them to units as individual characters, sometimes several with the same unit, and run them that way), but otherwise the 3 different "sizes" of combat you can run is a great feature.
It requires some tweaking/creative use of the rules to get spellcasters/psionicists to work effectively with the system
Hmmm...that's always been my biggest beef with combat systems and D&D. In the last D&D Campaign I played, a Birthright campaign, the DM basically toned down magic in combat a lot (we couldn't really settle on a system, and eventually the campaign died out before we really got into the mass combat). Personally, I think that was a cop-out and a letdown...
Two of the players, myself and one other guy, argued that magic would basically totally change the way medieval combat was conducted (in a magic-rich world obviously, which this campaign was). The DM countered that the wizards (and other powerful characters) would focus on each other, thereby removing the magic-factor from battle, to a degree (and so on, loooong discussion...).
Now, Dark Sun is not exactly a magic-rich world...but a level 17 defiler (with or without PrCs) sure would liven up the party. Add to that that the armies aren't as large, and wizards can have a huge impact on combat. With the XHP-rules for psionics, there are also some pretty nice powers that definitely affect combat (although not to such a large degree as magic on higher levels, there are a lot more psionic characters in DS).
I guess what I'm trying to ask here is, in an extremely round-about way (as usual), how does the Cry Havoc system account for magic/psionics? Not at all, meaning you have to make the rules yourself? How about the Miniatures system?
I guess what I'm trying to ask here is, in an extremely round-about way (as usual), how does the Cry Havoc system account for magic/psionics? Not at all, meaning you have to make the rules yourself? How about the Miniatures system?
(BTW, I agree with the other stuff you said, and went through the same thoughts/arguments/etc. ...which is why I eventually settled on Cry Havoc...)
The unit-scale rules basically use the regular D&D combat rules, except that everything is scaled up by a factor of 10 - turns are 1 minute long, map squares are 50' each, base unit sizes are 10 creatures, etc. There are a bunch of other rules as well, obviously, but all-around it's a pretty easy system to learn.
As far as spellcasters are concerned, they are limited to 1 spell per round, like normal rules, but since a round is now 1 minute long they are obviously much more limited in their overall firepower. Also, if they're in a unit then every spellcaster casts the same spell at the same target. This didn't at all work for me, but I realized that if you use the CH "hero" rules (basically, treat all spellcasters as PCs), it works great - you attach spellcasters to units, which means they can hide behind their cohorts for protection, but also means they can do whatever they like (they act independantly of the unit and other heroes attached to the same unit). So really, when I said I had to customize it I pretty much meant that I'd treat all spellcasters/psions as individuals, but I would stick them with specific units rather than running them around the battlefield by themselves (...so there were a lot of "heroes" in the battle, with most units having at least 1 or more "heroes" as squad leaders, psions or mages, etc.).
The downfall is of course the limit on 1 spell per minute...but in gameplay, my group found that a mage with an Area-of-effect spell was still extremely potent, and nearly all the casualties the PCs' units suffered were from enemy spellcasters. In comparison, however, any of the PCs (who were, granted, much higher level than the fodder troops) were able to lay waste to just as many enemy troops in a round with their melee or ranged attacks.
If you were doing this with 6-second rounds the mages would have a much greater impact of course, but I think the idea is that in a war situation spellcasters will limit their firepower and choose their targets wisely since they have no way of knowing how long the battle will last, if new-and-dangerous enemy units will suddenly appear, etc. The 1-minute turns also take into account maneuvering around obstacles, hiding behind cover, organizing troops into formations, etc., so between that and the "lengthy battle" mindset I think it's a good way to represent their impact in a warzone, and in gameplay you still end up with spellcasters having a major effect on the battle, akin to artillery in a modern war, but they're not the end-all, be-all of the fight.
If you were doing this with 6-second rounds the mages would have a much greater impact of course, but I think the idea is that in a war situation spellcasters will limit their firepower and choose their targets wisely since they have no way of knowing how long the battle will last, if new-and-dangerous enemy units will suddenly appear, etc. The 1-minute turns also take into account maneuvering around obstacles, hiding behind cover, organizing troops into formations, etc., so between that and the "lengthy battle" mindset I think it's a good way to represent their impact in a warzone, and in gameplay you still end up with spellcasters having a major effect on the battle, akin to artillery in a modern war, but they're not the end-all, be-all of the fight.
This sounds really great - and I totally agree about the rationale for spellcasters to spread their spells, choose targets, move etc. Thanks for the lengthy reply, appreciate it
This sounds really great - and I totally agree about the rationale for spellcasters to spread their spells, choose targets, move etc. Thanks for the lengthy reply, appreciate it
As my wife, parents, friends, co-workers, acquintances, and probably even total strangers would say, "I don't think he's even capable of short replies." My original reply had something like 2 more paragraphs in it, but I decided to edit it down. ;)
At any rate, I think Cry Havoc is a great product, and the fact that it also has two other "levels" of combat (day-to-day army battles, and month-by-month fights between entire nations) makes it even better. Between the day-by-day rules and the unit-scale rules, I'm pretty sure you can pull off just about any Dark Sun war you'd like.