Extended Battle Rules
Posted by Apostate on 01/15/24
While I didn't want to bog down scenes with a lot of heavy math and book keeping, I'm going to try to GM side include a number of factors to make sure the efforts of characters over the years in building domains is accounted for mathematically by the rules, it just might be more simplified than I would use in a much more rigorous system. If you're uninterested in the math, just know that the biggest factors are going to be the size of the army defending, how defensible it is, the characters involved and their abilities, and whether they have NPC support.
Defenses: Each castle level of a defending domain will grant 1 extra turn to the defenders, as well as double the castle's level in victory points per round automatically. Similar defensive features (such as fighting in a narrow pass, river crossing, etc) instead of a castle will grant equivalent defensive levels.
Org's Militarism: The 'host' organization's Military Mod halved will be added as victory points per round in battle. If people want to drop a gazillion military resources invested into an org to boost them up for their last stand, feel free, I'd much, much rather that be done than buying troops codedly).
Army: All units in an army are given an overall point value and totaled to an aggregate value overall. Infantry 1 point, Pike and Archers 2 points, Cavalry 3 points, Siege Weapons 100 points, Longships 10 points, Galleys/Cogs/etc 20 points, Dromonds 100 points, Caravels 500 points. An army of 500 points or less adds 1 victory point per round. 501 to 2000 adds 2. 2001-5000 adds 3. 5001 to 10000 adds 4. 10001 to 20000 adds 5. 20001 to 40000 adds 6. 40001 to 80000 adds 7. 80001 to 100000 adds 8. 100k to 200k is 10, above that is 12. Org leadership can have diplomatic checks rolled to see how much their banner rally is supported. Success doubles their army values. Spec triples it. Fail increases it by only half. Botch and they stay home to defend their domains, which will be overwhelmed and destroyed in detail. In addition, per round Leaders using their turn for war rolls add 1 victory point or increase the army by 30% rounded up on success, whichever is greater, double that on crits. Armies will degrade during the fight, and leaders will get an initial roll to potentially boost the army's effectiveness throughout.
Soulbonded NPCs add their power value in victory points to the bonded PC's successful rolls. (Starting adepts/mages/etc are 5, powerful beings are 10, fractals/metallics/elder dragons are 15-20 range typically, Gods/archfiends 25ish).
Each round will consist of PCs making an offensive @check at overall fight difficulty (this will be probably hard for most fights at full fealty level, daunting below that), and damage is assigned on failed rolls. After the PCs round, there will be a round of @luck checks to see if PCs are targeted typically, with then defensive rolls required on failure, and potential leadership checks against routing. Victory points are counted per offensive round, and then at the final round totaled. If the PCs don't win on that round, there is checks to disengage based on the difficulty of the fight.
Holding the Line: In a defeat scenario where PCs have to flee, a PC can choose to sacrifice themselves to hold the line and allow other PCs to escape, making their checks automatically succeed.
Guerilla actions: I am fine with characters offscreen denying battle to the horde and just trying to hamper its advance. This can be entirely an offscreen action as a safe IC option, that helps refugees get to safety, even if the domains are lost.
tldr, very very hard fights, and victory is not realistically possible for smaller domains that don't have extremely significant support. Character loss is likely for these fights, and overwhelmingly likely for the more dangerous ones.
What I do need oocly if people very much intend to do these last stands is put in a request for scheduling it, with a time that works for you, so I can put the event up. If someone is comfortable with an entirely offscreen resolution, that's fine too, it just is pretty grim. I'll try to GM further out geographic regions first but there is going to be handwaving there since ooc coordination of times is always tricky, so will just get them as I can.
Defenses: Each castle level of a defending domain will grant 1 extra turn to the defenders, as well as double the castle's level in victory points per round automatically. Similar defensive features (such as fighting in a narrow pass, river crossing, etc) instead of a castle will grant equivalent defensive levels.
Org's Militarism: The 'host' organization's Military Mod halved will be added as victory points per round in battle. If people want to drop a gazillion military resources invested into an org to boost them up for their last stand, feel free, I'd much, much rather that be done than buying troops codedly).
Army: All units in an army are given an overall point value and totaled to an aggregate value overall. Infantry 1 point, Pike and Archers 2 points, Cavalry 3 points, Siege Weapons 100 points, Longships 10 points, Galleys/Cogs/etc 20 points, Dromonds 100 points, Caravels 500 points. An army of 500 points or less adds 1 victory point per round. 501 to 2000 adds 2. 2001-5000 adds 3. 5001 to 10000 adds 4. 10001 to 20000 adds 5. 20001 to 40000 adds 6. 40001 to 80000 adds 7. 80001 to 100000 adds 8. 100k to 200k is 10, above that is 12. Org leadership can have diplomatic checks rolled to see how much their banner rally is supported. Success doubles their army values. Spec triples it. Fail increases it by only half. Botch and they stay home to defend their domains, which will be overwhelmed and destroyed in detail. In addition, per round Leaders using their turn for war rolls add 1 victory point or increase the army by 30% rounded up on success, whichever is greater, double that on crits. Armies will degrade during the fight, and leaders will get an initial roll to potentially boost the army's effectiveness throughout.
Soulbonded NPCs add their power value in victory points to the bonded PC's successful rolls. (Starting adepts/mages/etc are 5, powerful beings are 10, fractals/metallics/elder dragons are 15-20 range typically, Gods/archfiends 25ish).
Each round will consist of PCs making an offensive @check at overall fight difficulty (this will be probably hard for most fights at full fealty level, daunting below that), and damage is assigned on failed rolls. After the PCs round, there will be a round of @luck checks to see if PCs are targeted typically, with then defensive rolls required on failure, and potential leadership checks against routing. Victory points are counted per offensive round, and then at the final round totaled. If the PCs don't win on that round, there is checks to disengage based on the difficulty of the fight.
Holding the Line: In a defeat scenario where PCs have to flee, a PC can choose to sacrifice themselves to hold the line and allow other PCs to escape, making their checks automatically succeed.
Guerilla actions: I am fine with characters offscreen denying battle to the horde and just trying to hamper its advance. This can be entirely an offscreen action as a safe IC option, that helps refugees get to safety, even if the domains are lost.
tldr, very very hard fights, and victory is not realistically possible for smaller domains that don't have extremely significant support. Character loss is likely for these fights, and overwhelmingly likely for the more dangerous ones.
What I do need oocly if people very much intend to do these last stands is put in a request for scheduling it, with a time that works for you, so I can put the event up. If someone is comfortable with an entirely offscreen resolution, that's fine too, it just is pretty grim. I'll try to GM further out geographic regions first but there is going to be handwaving there since ooc coordination of times is always tricky, so will just get them as I can.