D&D 4E - Rules of War
 

So I've been DMing a new 4E campaign for the past 6 months. I still consider myself a 4E noob, but that's besides the point.

My players are getting to the point where they have the option and probably will start commanding troops, at least on a small scale at first.

A little bit about the campaign I'm running.

• There are two major nations on the continent: the Hellteth Empire and the Traylane League.
  The Hellteth are strict, mostly human, anti-magic, highly militaristic. They occupy roughly 70% of the landmass of the continent. They used to rule most all of the continent. Totalitarian government run solely by an Emperor, rank achieved by birth.
  
  The Traylane League is a newer nation, a little over a century old. It took a civil war to split from Hellteth. They tend to be more progressive and accepting, so there's more racial heterogenity. They embrace magic and the dwarves have gifted them with a variety of technological advances, including primitive firearms. However, they're also still a bunch of corrupt oligoarchs. League government is run by their council, which consists currently of 10 dwarves, 1 human, and 1 eladrin. About 30% of continental landmass.
  
  The PCs are under a two-year mercenary contract with the Traylane League, currently working for one of the dwarf nobles.
  After a thrilling conclusion to an evil druid quest and some brief coma time, the PCs return to the League and find Hellteth has suddenly declared war, and seem intent on taking back their old land.

I have googled on several occasions for "war" rules in D&D, I couldn't even find any for 3E.

I am planning on designing my own unless some awesome ones materialize. This thread is mostly an idea wall I can bounce things off of, or ideas I can borrow.

I had one of my players draw (he's better than me) a map of the continent on chart paper, and I'll be using Risk pieces to designate armies. My plan for the rules is to make use of 4E's "swarm" rules and treat entire armies, big or small, as swarms. I was going to simplify the gameplay rules into single rolls for the swarms, as well as simplifying HP into something like "Army Status."

Specialized units (mages, grenadiers, etc) could join these armies to provide bonuses to the swarms. Armies don't "heal" unless they have cleric/herbalist specialists, or if they go to cities. If they're in cities, they can "draft" over time to regenerate their numbers.

The rules need to be simple but fun, and as best as possible based on D&D stuff already at hand.


Some may ask why even bother with rules? Why not just shift the narrative according to whatever influences the PCs have and just roll with it? Well my short answer is "because I can." Half the fun for me in D&D is designing my own rules, the other half is playtesting them. I think my players will also appreciate having concrete rules to toy with beyond their usual at-will/encounter/daily powers.


So...anybody seen rules like this before, or have any good ideas?

Are you interested in borrowing elements from other games like Warhammer?

There is a D&D 3.5 war-book.

It's oddly expensive on Amazon, but you can probably find it by looking around, or by other totally legal sources.

Yes I'm willing to borrow elements.


But I'm not really looking to buy anything, since I'm quite broke right now. And I've been trying to cut down on my totally totally totally legal sources for multimedia too. Are you aware of their approach/ideas/rules from the supplement?

Quite interested in this as I'm planning a somewhat big battle for my own players. Incidentally, how big a force do you reckon would you need to attack a mid-sized merchant town of maybe 1000-2000, maybe 3000 citizens?

One of the Warcraft pnp books had something about it, as well as feats for it. Beloved Commander (temporary bonus to stats of allied troops that see the commander fall) and a feint dead combination would be a hilarious combination xP

Would have to go through the books to see how actual combat works, though.

Think this was based on 3.5, though

Short answer? However many you can bring. There really isn't such a thing as too many soldiers, assuming you can handle the logistics.

Long answer? Depends on several factors for an accurate estimate...

Is the town walled, fortified, or otherwise built into any natural defense? IE Lake, Cliff, Ocean, on a hill? Is it likely to turn into a siege?

How many actual trained soldiers are in the town? How many magic users?

What type of government does the town have? How will bribery affect the officials?

What Guilds are present in the town? Thieves? Fighters? Mages? Others? How big is each guild? How will bribery affect each guild?

Do they know the attack is imminent? How do they treat random passerbys?

A map of the town and about 50 miles around it would be great too.

Hell, if you can get me all that I can tell you how I would do it and you can use that

I did it once by hacking together warhammer rules with Dnd rules- generally I used Warhammer rules for the overall flow of things with a stat system that was half d20, half d6 and with magic also there- seperated into the magic phase. It worked ok.

I should probably clarify that my players are going to be defending. :)

For what it's worth though: the attackers are Goblins and to them it's a city with a big stone wall, in an area with no particular terrain features to speak of (because I'm a lazy git when it comes to area design), and any guild- or strategy-related intricacies don't matter much to them as they take more of a "that city needs to go away" approach.

Anyway that's probably a little more involved with realism and strategy than I want to go, all I really need is a number high enough to worry them into getting preparations going but low enough to not send them packing over the hills. I've been thinking, I dunno, 500?

I would say start at 500 then add 10 goblins for each adventurer level among the NPCs of town, and 25 per adventurer level of your players party. Round to the nearest hundred. Then add 500 more, cause Goblins attack in LARGE groups or they dont attack at all.

EDIT: I would also like to point out my disappointment cause planning is my favorite thing to do in a tabletop. I have been told I am a mastermind.