Re: [WW] Weapon reliability mechanics [was some silly argument]

[deaconblue3@juno.com]

On the other side of things, I've spent a lot of time making up tracker
sheets for large numbers of opponents, as well as the same for the
players
to quickly run their NPCs, which greatly speeds things up.
In case I've missunderstood this all and you meant "hundreds of
combatants"
rather than "dozens of combatants", then yes, there's no way you're going
to
run a effective d20 mass-combat. We tried doing that in a fantasy game
just
recently - even with some home-made rules to speed things up (basically,
grouping creatures into units of 10 and attacking as full units), it took
4
weeks in all to finish the battle, which involved 1500+ undead, monsters,
mages, psions, and other evil-doers seiging a castle containing about
half
as many "good guys".
If you're just trying to run a battle involving a platoon or so of
combatants, however, don't worry - if everyone knows the rules, it'll
work
well.
 
-Brandon


--->I've used, and continue to use, Brandon's tracker sheets.  Very, very
useful for tracking platoon level combat.  I reccomend using all of
Brandon's sheets.  Even so, it can be cumbersome to run a combat
involving over 50 combatants on each side.  Even with the sheets, I still
had squads acting at once (excepting the PCs and the mortor teams).  The
battle was an assault on an air field, with the PCs and the rest of their
platoon as the attackers.  what I did was to have each squad (allied and
enemy) get its own initiative, and act as a squad on that initiative. 
This sped things up considerably, and kept things flowing.  In terms of
damage and casualties, I used a "roll off" method, a contested roll
between the squads, with modifiers for tactical ability, level, cover, #
of automatic weapons, etc.  High roll "wins" and by how much determined
the resulting casualties.  Winning by only a few means light casualties
(if any), but the enemy is suppressed for that turn.  Winning by 10 or
mroe would indicate heavier casualties and damage, as well as
suppression.  If you want to run a regimental or larger scal battle, get
a good set of mini rules (Spearhead, Battleground) for either 15mm or
1/265th scale, and invest in some minis.  It will be up to the individual
WMs to determine how the PCs are represented, and how they are effected
in the battle.

Josh R

"No matter where you go, there you are."  B.Bonzai