Author Topic: Making D&D accomodate 17-18th century and WWI War Doctrines  (Read 2603 times)

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fun_at_funerals

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Making D&D accomodate 17-18th century and WWI War Doctrines
« on: February 19, 2010, 05:13:00 AM »
Let me put this into a context. We're designing a world where different civilization have reached different stages of technological achievement due to magic. This advancement has obviously changed their style of warfare. Instead of simple having to deal with footmen, archers, and mounted cavalry, the players will now be encountering things like trenches, artillery, and firing lines.

Given that, my friend and I are trying to work out the effect this'll have on combat with the PC's and we are having a tad of a difficult time trying to additional rules for combat that would take into account warfare doctrines from other centuries.

One such issue involved charging against ranged units.

Ranged units are going to be employing rifles (bolt action with maybe a 5-10 round ammo cartridges). And that's just the mundane weapons. They eventually will encounter armies carrying enchanted weapons. Furthermore, there is the matter of firing formations. They'll be encountering rifle columns and some trench warfare.

My question is, how can I adapt the combat system to accommodate targets like these? Are melee characters going to be completely passe? Will everyone simply be ranged? Will combat degenerate to the PC's finding cover then shooting?

While upping the role of ranged combat, we would as much as possible like to prevent melee combat from suffering as much. But as is, it seems melee characters are getting the crappier end of the adaptation. Charging units provoke attack of opportunities from ranged targets as they try to close the distance, as do mages when casting spells. Ranged weapons do considerably more damage now and deal even greater damage to targets that provoke attacks of opportunity while enjoying a bonus to their attack roll.

All we're trying to design a suppression fire system which grants a kind of cover for charging units. Melee units can wield a pistol in their off-hand and can fight one handed without penalty. Charging units with a weapon in their off hand can fire while trying to close the distance between him and his target to grant themselves a minor cover bonus under certain conditions. We're instituting a minimum firing range for ranged units to offset the power they now have.

We could really use some help trying to work out a system here.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Making D&D accomodate 17-18th century and WWI War Doctrines
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2010, 05:18:59 AM »
Sounds like your system is pretty realistic, then - running straight forward into melee is going to be suicidal in trench warfare.

Perhaps make most ranged weapons have a limited field of view, and encourage other ways of breaching the gap? 

Extensive usage of concealment to prevent being targeted (eversmoking bottles, obscuring mist, that sort of thing).  Short range teleportation to get to the actual fight, where melees will just thresh through ranged combatants - perhaps a variant least dragonmark of passage?  Heavy usage of illusions and invisibility? 

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Hand_of_Vecna

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Re: Making D&D accomodate 17-18th century and WWI War Doctrines
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2010, 03:37:14 PM »
When I first read the title I thought ok; make ranged weapons dangerous and use the existing cover rules. Which you did. It seems like the problem you've run into is that WWI combat is a) boring and b) mellee bites the big one. The thing is WWI combat was boring it was hours and hours of sitting around because charging was suicide and they just wanted to charge to the point that they could shoot the enemy you want your players to stab them (I'm aware plenty of people were stabbed in WWI but, it was a secondary goal after shooting.)

Ok solutions.

First  you get to hand wave away alot of wasted time when the characters might be waiting hours for their oppurtunity to affect the battle. (Our sappers have almost reached their trench, this NPC wizard is gonna cast spell X for you, our artillery disrupted their troops in this area, etc)

if protection from arrows works on bullets (it does in d20 modern) the PC's are golden though this could be overpowered in such a ranged heavy world so it might be better if it didn't work.

Towershields, you might want to require special materials or magic to make them work against bullets and you should use facing rules so you only get cover from the proper direction.
 
Optimize Armor class.



fun_at_funerals

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Re: Making D&D accomodate 17-18th century and WWI War Doctrines
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2010, 04:54:02 PM »
Sounds like your system is pretty realistic, then - running straight forward into melee is going to be suicidal in trench warfare.

Perhaps make most ranged weapons have a limited field of view, and encourage other ways of breaching the gap? 

This is actually a really good idea. We're now thinking of implementing an "orientation" or "facing" system. Melee units will threaten squares on their left and right as well as those in front of them while ranged unit can only target those within a cone representing its field of view (which starts at the square they occupy). This is particularly awesome as it add the strategic dimension of out-maneuvering your opponent. This is particularly awesome for rogues since the scope of sight mechanic allows them to pull off sneak attacks more easily.

Does anyone have any ideas for a cover fire and suppression system?
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Hand_of_Vecna

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Re: Making D&D accomodate 17-18th century and WWI War Doctrines
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2010, 02:13:10 AM »
It's pretty much nothing more than most people would logically come up with on their own but, UA has facing rules.

You could try having a unit make a group action to fire at an area a bit bigger than 1 square per participant where they create a AoE attack that is blocked by cover but ignores AV just allowing a reflex save for no damage.