[Mass Combat] When do the rules break?

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I think it may be a common problem in RPGs that players are reluctant to have multiple "pets" or followers, or are (or feel that they are) pressurized into not going there (by the GM or by other players), because handling a dozen allies in combat, e.g. summoned entities or animated undead, is just way too cumbersome.

That could be one place where "GURPS Mass Combat" might give more freedom to players, e.g. effectively empower players to become large-scale animators of undead, or at least medium-scale animators.

Personally I balked when I saw that one of the "Elements" in "GURPS DF5: Allies" allowed the Divine Servitor to animate up to 20 corpses. Way too combersome, I thought.

GURPS Diablo II suddenly leaps to mind, the huge swarms of enemies (and allies, if you are a necromancer) in that game would be a nightmare to keep track of.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

GURPS Diablo II suddenly leaps to mind, the huge swarms of enemies (and allies, if you are a necromancer) in that game would be a nightmare to keep track of.

I'd always play as Necromancer, in Diablo II, and spent all my Talent Points on skeletons and skeletal mages. It was basically the lazy way to play, requiring almost no activity on my behalf.

My two favourite classes in World of Warcraft are somewhat similar, in that they both have a pet that does most of the work, although I do use my characters' skills too, quite actively. The pets are more like meat shields, really, keeping the damage away from me.

[bcd]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Personally I balked when I saw that one of the "Elements" in "GURPS DF5: Allies" allowed the Divine Servitor to animate up to 20 corpses. Way too combersome, I thought.

When the party's necromancer-Osiris priest sends his army of undead giant rats(*) into combat, I use the One-Man Armies rule from GURPS Supers (p. 118), basically this reduces them to a RoF 5 (say) Rcl 2 attack. I will do the same if his Servitor ever gathers himself an undead army (this takes a bit of doing since he must kill each recruit himself, with his special FP-costing attack).


* The "1d giant rats" encounter result is now little more than a recruitment opportunity for the party but this is possibly only fair since that same result cost the life of the necromancer's player's previous character ...

[Kallatari]

I've used Mass Combat for "small combat" of a 6-10 on the PC's side (PC plus allies/sidekicks) versus 20-30 opponents. I find it does work well to speed up combat, but with a few minor tweaks of my own.

First, as someone pointed out, the duration of a round of combat is out of whack for small groups. You need to shorten the rounds down to 10 minutes, or 5 minutes, or even less.

Second, I modified the Misfortunes of War, in which, if you succeed the roll (i.e., suffer a misfortune), you take a hit that does a damage roll equal to the average damage roll of the enemy, with an extra hit for every 2 points by which the roll succeeded. You can apply DR normally. On a critical success, it's a critical hit - or you got hit by a more powerful opponent. Note, I've made this change for all types of Mass Combat, not just small scale, as I have PC with extremely wide ranging DRs, so I find this is the best way to take that effect it into account. Likewise, it also helps make the difference in damage taken between enemies who are humans with swords, or giants with giant two-handed axes.

Lastly, changes to casualties rules. It doesn't work well when you're dealing with only PCs in your army. A 50% casualty means nothing when only the Misfortunes of War will have any effect on their HP. So instead of representing casualties, I use it to represents supplies/expendables - if the PC suffer 50% casualties, then they've used 50% of their ammo, FP, mana points, charges, potions, grenades, etc. (note, it doesn't affect HP). I keep the penalty to the Tactics rolls because of "casualties", but it doesn't affect the PCs themselves. NPC with the party are fair game, however, unless they're Allies. edit: This also helps set the tone for the rest of the adventure, so they know what state they're in after defeating the evil warlord's 50 guards outside the palace and now they enter to face the warlord himself.