What's a good system for modeling mass combat against large

>>51227503
>What's a good system for modeling mass combat
There isn't one. Mayyybe GURPS with the right choice of supplements, but I've no idea what the right choice means here.

>>51227503
You can modify most systems to function at a different scale, roll for all of the tribesmen (or if they're split into groups roll for each group) at once and do an appropriate amount of damage, when the massive beast attacks instead of damaging individual units each point of damage kills a man.

This way you can reduce the number of rolls required to end the conflict, you can still apply bonuses and penalties appropriately.

You will need to do a little fine-tuning to figure out appropriate damage values and whatnot.

>>51227503

Riddle of Steel? Certainly something that takes subsystem damage into account.

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Any other suggestions? The last time I asked people suggested Savage Worlds, which I guess would work alright for the mass combat (just use squads of identical units that roll as one), but the Monster seemed... flakey.

Looking at the rules, it looks like the masses would just be throwing dice at it until something crit high enough to pop its defenses. That or have everything a set-piece battle where the humans have cannons or ballista or something they have to protect.

Does anyone have enough experience with SW to tell me whether or not that's an accurate assessment of play?

>>51227503
OGRE

GURPS Mass Combat has you covered. It has a really neat system for organizing units.

>>51230618
Savage Worlds combat can be pretty stupid to be honest, I like the system but the damage mechanic is fucked.

There's an important questions that really needs to be answered before a useful suggestion can actually be given: How much detail are you trying to model into the mechanics?

>>51228310
So are the players controlling the armed unit, or the monsterous beast?

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>>51230761
>How much detail are you trying to model into the mechanics?

I originally got the idea when planning out a Knights vs Dinosaurs campaign - feudal knights questing to defeat "dragons" like raptor packs and T Rexes.

On the mass combat side, at least a few hero units with personality for the players to play as, but also a high casualty rate. So special snowflake systems were right out.

On the monster side, enough detail to make it feel like they were taking down a big goddamned monster, not chipping away at a block of hp or waiting for a super crit to decapitate it instantly. That meant most wargames I'm familiar with wouldn't work well.

So, some kind of wargamey roleplayey thing in the middle?

>>51227503

kingdom death

>>51230977
How about a mix of single-unit and squad mechanics? Squads attack in mass and die in mass, single-units attack by themselves and have HP rather than getting insta-killed.

So a band of 5 basic knights might attack and do 1 damage per knight, that turn 3 knights die and that squad can only do 2 damage rather than 5 damage the following turn because they only have two units left.

The single units on the other hand perform more like a classic rpg character, they can take multiple hits and have special abilities, and a single hero unit might do as much damage as a full squad of normal knights.

>>51231039
Another idea to add on to this: Divide the monster into segments.

Say, each limb is a segment, along with the head and the tail. Once you do enough damage to the creature it can no longer attack with that segment: after you do enough damage as a whole (this doesn't necessarily mean you have to destroy every segment, maybe you can get every piece down to 50% and still kill it, but this may be a bad way of doing things because it will keep all of its attacks until the very end) the monster is dead.

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>>51231039
That's roughly how Savage Worlds works, and probably why it was suggested. PC characters get three wounds before dying, extras with similar stats die instantly.

SW's problem was on the monster side. To take their stock dragon, which is about the size I'm thinking of, it has a Parry of 7 and a size of 8, making it easy to hit, but a Toughness of 20, so you'd almost certainly need multiple exploding dice to pierce it. So it's the buckets of dice problem.

>>51231163
Going a step further:

Each segment has unique attacks, the head has a powerful single-target attack, the tail has a powerful sweep attack that can hit multiple targets. The front legs have a weak sweep attack and the back legs have a weak single-target attack.

You'll also want to incorporate directionality and rotating the monster needs to cost the monster movement points. Perhaps the dragon has to decide if it'll turn around and attack the knights at its rear versus charging towards the ranged attackers in the distance.

This creates tactical opportunities as well, for example if you disable the tail the rear of the dragon becomes relatively safe because it can only attack weakly with its back legs against a single target.

>>51230977
If you want to use GURPS, this is how I'd do it.

Tackle the "mass combat" aspect by using swarm rules applied to Nameless Rank-and-File Soldiers; that lets you put a LOT of guys on the field without it becoming a nightmare to track or going to the actual Mass Combat rules which are much less detailed than the standard combat rules. You can have one giant swarm for the army as a whole or three to five smaller swarms that the PCs can help direct tactically.

Individual heroes are, well, just that. You could either build them beforehand or have your players use Templates which are optimized partially-built characters akin to classes (they're great for newbies because they give their character direction out-of-the-box and avoid the "drowning in options" issue many have with the system, plus goddamn do they make chargen quicker, which is a must for high-lethality games). Either way, I recommend a starting point value of 250 (experienced adventurers but still very mortal, roughly level 4 to 6 in D&D terms) to 400 (bordering on superhero) depending on how powerful you want the heroes to be.

Monsters can be handled with the basic set, though "Combat Writ Large," an article from the Combat copy of GURPS's monthly e-zine Pyramid, may be useful. Hit locations, crippling, and bleeding are all included in the basic set regardless and will probably go a long way to making the fights more than standing around trading blows until one HP value reaches 0, plus GURPS's combat system has oodles of maneuvers and techniques available for warriors.

The system defaults to "heroic realism," meaning the odds are on the PCs' side, but reality doesn't bend for them -- a dagger to the gut is still dangerous no matter how cool you are, to say nothing of a giant beasty's claws or fangs. Killing a dragon (or dragon analog) will almost always be a tough fight that requires careful preparation, solid tactical decision making, and the most hale and hearty of heroes... but it's doable.

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>>51231277
That's certainly how I'd do a big spaceship, crippling it a bit at a time by taking out weapon systems, engines and shield generators, but that's difficult to do with a single organic being, even a pretty big one.

Thinking more on it, I think maybe it's unrealistic to cram it all into one encounter. Drag-out fights to the death between equally matched opponents just don't really happen irl. Either the monster is hunting the people or the people are hunting the monster.

Either way, it'll be a series of short, chaotic encounters in which the monster is trying to fuck shit up/fight to escape, and the mobs are trying to scare it enough to drive it off or wound it enough to track it down again.

Finally a coup de grace encounter where the monster finally routs the mob and dines heartily, or the mob chases it back to its den, bloody and heaving, capable of only an occasional half-hearted swipe.

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>>51230618
>>51230761
>>51230977
>>51231249
It's a fun system but it doesn't scale. It's designed plupy skirmishes in mind. Not epic battles with boss monsters.

>>51231277
>>51231648
I'll be really tempted to look at Tank infantry war games for inspiration.

A bunch of russian peasants trying to take a German tank sounds like it would play much like what you describe.

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>>51231711
How do they generally handle it? Component destruction; treads and turret and such? Critical damage threshold where one lucky shot makes the tank explode?

Also, gettin' real low on monsters with/vs armies pics. If anyone else has any, that'd be great.

>>51228310
Blade of the Iron Throne, it's successor, is also a good option. I always push for it as an RPG capable of playing SoulsBorne, whenever that thread comes up, but nothing ever comes of it.

I'm half-tempted to homebrew it myself just so we can get people to shut up about it.