Mass Combat for D&D 5th Edition

So, I like D&D 5th Edition. Quite a bit, actually. However, it's not perfect, and it does have one glaring hole that I love to put in my games these days: Mass combat.

I love Mass Combat. I love the idea of big army fights, but abstracted down to manageable levels, rather than putting the RPG session on hold to play a miniatures wargame. I love this concept so much that I managed to work mass combat scenes into my last two campaigns (Necessary Evil and Deadlands Reloaded). Mass Combat rules were one of those things I really hoped would be in the 5e DMG, but was not present, unfortunately...so when I was staring at a scenario that could easily break out into mass combat (Episode 6 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen), and the DMG wasn't a huge amount of help in this case, I put my thinking cap on...and went back to what had worked so well in the past:

I dug out Savage Worlds.

No, I didn't suddenly convert the game over to Savage Worlds. I love Savage Worlds, and I'll get back to it soon enough, but there's more than a few things that it does that has, and can, help me in D&D5e.

Like Mass Combat.

Unfortunately, Wounds and Bennies and Knowledge (Battle) don't immediately get along with D&D. I was looking at a potentially uphill battle...until I remembered that Shane Hensley had applied those same rules to a system that didn't have a leadership-style tactical skill, and the system also had a hit point system.

And so I dug out Army of Darkness from Eden Studios, written by Shane Hensley and featuring an adapted Savage Worlds Mass Combat system...and I went to work with the two books in hand, as well as the D&D books, and kitbashed in the following system (which got a playthrough Saturday night, and went pretty well):

D&D 5e Mass Combat Rules

Adapted from Savage Worlds and Army of Darkness rules by Shane Hensley

A Touch of Evil: To The Last Man Variant

So A Touch of Evil started off with eight characters and a single board...but has now blown up into 24 characters and three boards...it makes it pretty easy to never really play with some of the characters, especially since we tend to use random draws for our characters, so tonight we went with new variant:

- Everyone draws a random hero.
- If that hero is KOed, they are assumed to be killed.
- The Shadow Tracker moves 1 step closer to darkness.
- Roll d6 and discard Investigation, Allies and/or Items as normal.
- During the Mystery Phase, bring a new Hero into play. The Investigation, Items and Allies are given to the new Hero for taking up the fight for Shadowbrook.

We actually tried to play with this variant, but the three characters we drew (Heinrich Cartwright, Harlow Morgan and Eliza the Witch Hunter) actually stayed alive until the Showdown with The Sunken Seven, when Harlow's death pushed the Shadow Tracker to 0.

Still, seems like a promising variant for those times in which we are lamenting not using all the heroes.

Savage Worlds Power Stunts

This should have been so obvious to me.

The first full-fledged Savage Worlds campaign that my group embarked on was a Necessary Evil campaign. I'm actually a huge fan of the Super Powers system, I just don't like it for...superheroes.

While some of the powers have flaws (Decay, as written, is useless in our experience), the overall system just isn't flexible. An OBVIOUS solution was staring me right in the face, though.

The Super Powers Companion offers up Heroic Bennies, which offer benefits not unlike those of the Deadlands Fate Chips, including adding an additional +1d6 to a die roll. I submit an alternate use: Power Stunts.

POWER STUNTS
Your hero can spend a Heroic Bennie to gain the effect of any applicable Modifier for one of his powers, until the beginning of his next turn. The GM has final say over whether or not a Modifier is usable in this manner.

Simple, straightforward.

Supers, by their nature, make up crap as they go along...twisting their powers in new and exciting ways. If a PC finds a tactic that they really like? They can pay Power Points to make it a permanent part of their arsenal. Otherwise, they can only bust it out if they have a Heroic Bennie to spare.

Optionally, you can make that a use of any Bennie, not just a Heroic Bennie, if the idea sounds good but limited.

This may have just salvaged "Savage Worlds As A Supers System" for me.