A protracted fight

[Charlie_X]

My next session's the start of my campaign's big season finale. They've got a long, hideous road ahead of them and I was wonderin if there was any advice or input people could give to this.

The group are looking after about 400 people. They've ditched some civilians, lost a lot of people and gained a large amount of allied (kind of) knights. The group are on their way to a militarised town big enough to take in their population and likely to save them, but the priests have just had visions of EVERYTHING in the towns they've seen rising from the dead and charging towards them.

We're talking a "33" style bombardment of enemies. Every 20 minutes or so there will be a ton of foes charging down on them. Mainly human undead, but also Wild Elves, Dwarve and animals.

The problem here is that I can' run a combat for every 20 minutes which passes, and there are a ton of combatants (nearly 200 of the 400 populace by now). The key fights they can be in, but I need a fast and loose way.

My current idea is utilising one of the few things I loved about 4E. Skill Challenges.

Basically for a day and a half of travel, they'll need to make a roll each, using skills they determine to be relevant to the cause, allowing everyone to pitch in an potentially help. I'm not having them roll to fight as everyone will be fighting, but perhaps something like: Tactics keeps people alive, Impress and Resolve prevents the penalties people will start gaining from fatigue, Intimidate to drill them into moving faster, that kind of thing. Again, there's no need to measure their success against the enemy (who, conservatively, number over 15,000), just the ability for the group to survive.

I've already kept track of resources they have (gunpowder, etc) for the horrific finale, but I need some method of wearing them down in a quick, interesting way to show the constant pressure they're facing.

Any better ideas or suggestions for skills and results they can have on the group?

[Krensky]

Look for Adamant 's Narrative Combat.

[Charlie_X]

Sweet. I'd never really noticed Adamant until Icons, and here they are popping up again.

Just looking on DriveThru it's only 64 pence. I'll have to check it out. I've grown to really hate the slowdown combat becomes, so anything to speed things up would be great.

[Psion]

Too bad the mass combat dramatic confliict didn't make the cut.

Did you look at the complex skill check rules in the fc book? That's the ticket afaiac.

[Charlie_X]

Yeah, it works, but I'll be modifying it. No breakthroughs/setbacks, though, as it's all survival against a barrage of enemies.

At the moment I'm using:

Each turn, d20x3 people will die. Possibly more, possibly less.
They can work out what to do, but here are some suggestions:
•   Survival – Resolve, Tactics, Sneak, Spellcasting could all allow more people to live through their round. DC20 will remove a multiplier from the d20 roll. A critical hit will stop anyone from dying. A botch will make the result x4.
•   Exhaustion – Intimidate and Resolve will help spur people on. If there is not a check against exhaustion each turn/every six hours, then the group will ALL suffer a -1 to their rolls unless there’s some anti-sleep ability. They will have 1 level of fatigued at the start of the next scene if the penalty remains at the end of this challenge.
•   Healing – A Medicine DC15 will add 1 to the population count, +1 per 4 above the DC. A crit will double the amount, to a maximum of that turn’s casualty roll.
•   Hiding – Blend, Disguise, Sneak or Survival allows the group to camouflage the caravans, with a DC10 to subtract 1d3+Dex from the casualty roll.
•   Choosing the Right Paths – Search, Investigate, Survival to search for a good place to go. Will add +2 to one person’s roll next turn. On a critical result, will skip one six-hour increment.
•   Repairs – Craft or Knowledge roll DC15. Equipment gets damaged. After suffering enough casualties, a repair roll will be mandatory for a PC or NPC. A failure means -1 to all gear checks until the gear is repaired. A critical means +1 to gear checks for the next check.

I'm really good at winging it so any unorthodox ideas which can't be covered by these, I'll find something for.

Also NPC contacts have been a big thing, especially given that in their group of survivors, losing a blacksmith means NO weapons repaired back to a good quality. Losing a priest means less healing. This means that while everyone's doing their thing, the PC's can call on them for a bonus, at the risk of putting them in my evil GM spotlight and therefore risking their survival.

Hopefully that'll work as something quick if I can't read through the narrative combat by then.

[Krensky]

I've used it a few times and found it almost always needs to be adjusted for the conflict at hand. That said, it does provide an excellent framework for this sort of thing.

[Psion]

Looks good!