In Shadow of the Dragon Queen, battle involves Krynn. But if you would like guidelines for working mass combats, you’ll must look elsewhere.

From the fields of Pellenor to the Battle of Brenna, fantasy tales are filled with mass combats between lethal armies. Hordes of troopers with swords and shields, speeding headlong in direction of their reverse appears to be written into the material of fantasy tales. And the alternatives for character moments, thrilling fights, and epic romances alike are sufficient to energy an entire collection of video games. Looking at you Fire Emblem.

So how will WotC deliver mass fight to D&D? The brief reply is, by releasing a companion board/technique sport that releases alongside the principle journey. The lengthy reply is the remainder of this text.

Because even the designers of D&D know the sport has its limits. But simply check out how they deal with War in Dragonlance. There’s truly a fairly ingenious algorithm. But if you would like a struggle with a whole lot of individuals, you’ll need a totally different sport.

Dragonlance Mass Combat – Fantasy Battles For D&D

In Dragonlance, the War of the Lance is the defining narrative of the marketing campaign. Your adventurers shall be heroes swept up within the tides of battle. As the Dragon Armies of Takhisis invade the lands of Solamnia, battle performs an necessary position within the marketing campaign. But you received’t be taking command of squads of troopers.

After all, within the journey, you’re nonetheless the traditional D&D character. And Dungeons & Dragons, for all its strengths, breaks down a bit as soon as greater than 10 or so combatants on both aspect get entangled. But that doesn’t imply mass fight has no place within the sport.

As WotC suggests, you possibly can play a distinct sport. In the video, they point out Warriors of Krynn, the companion piece to Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Warriors of Krynn is a method/board sport that does have guidelines for items of fantasy troops shifting across the battlefield. And it has mechanics for participant character-type heroes, together with guidelines designed to “import” your D&D character. So you possibly can nonetheless play a private position within the preventing.

But the opposite manner Shadow of the Dragon Queen handles mass combats is thru “battlefield encounters.” And this method seems like precisely what you’d need. Instead of an encounter happening in a forest or dungeon, it takes place “in a battlefield.” D&D’s Wes Schneider outlines the method within the video above. These are moments the place “the camera” of the sport zooms in on the gamers, who’re preventing amid a raging battle.

To this finish, there’s a desk of battlefield occasions {that a} DM can roll on to see what occurs. Much like lair actions, and the way they characterize an epic monster’s affect on the land round them, the battlefield will get an initiative rely of its personal. It goes final, and on the finish of every flip, the battlefield adjustments. Riderless horses would possibly stampede via, or stray arrow volleys can pierce your fight.

And this can be a fairly ingenious manner of dealing with it. It simplifies the mechanics of battle or the like whereas retaining issues private. D&D, on the finish of the day, is all about characters. And these guidelines maintain the give attention to the characters. So you possibly can nonetheless have your setpiece encounters set in a large battle.

You would possibly simply wish to seize Warriors of Krynn too

Bell of Lost Souls Staff Writer and DM, J.R. covers RPGs of all stripes and from time to time eats sandwiches. You can ask him about both at [email protected]

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