Reckoning Battle Rules
Posted by Apostate on 01/14/24
The fight against the horde is going to be one usually of survival, and almost any victory will be pyrrhic in nature because losses will be high. The heaviest weights will be the amount of NPC forces there (army size), how defensible the area is, and the amount of PCs there assisting.
Bsaed on the size of the PC forces and how defensible it is, PCs will get a number of rounds for the battle, and each round of battle they will win or lose a number of Victory Points towards a final total. This is to represent doing as much damage, and as strong a fight as they can manage before they are overwhelmed, and only in truly fantastic results can they hope to stop or rout that part of the horde. Each round will have a mass check for fighting, with PCs contributing towards victory, and the roll will be at normal, hard, or daunting based on the battle leaders' success rolls and the overall difficulty of the fight. Most @checks will be at least at hard, and badly outnumbered fights will all @check at daunting with a limited number of rounds, making getting a significant amount of Victory Points effectively impossible.
A character contributing with normal actions will win 1 victory point on a simple success, and 2 points on a spectacular success, and 4 on an inhuman success. Failure will result in damage, as well as -1 point to the total, and -2 for a botch. Using magic will multiply the success values by 5, so 5/10/20 for points, but after three uses of magic in a battle, characters begin to tire, and will need to do increasingly difficult rolls to use it, and start taking damage from the strain that begins to compound.
Victory Values:
300: Decisive victory. The horde is stopped at this point, the domain is saved, and the refugees in this region will all make it to Arx. In addition, the forces when they do reach Arx will be significantly weaker. Losses of forces 20 percent or less.
200: Victory. The refugees make it to Arx, domain survives. Army losses 20-40%. The horde is slowed but marching around the domain.
100: Domain contested but being overrun. Enemy forces are stalled, and refugees will make it to Arx, but the domain will have to be abandoned and make a fighting withdrawl to Arx. Characters can withdrawal easily. Army losses 60% or less.
50: Domain defense is collapsing and very quickly overrun. Unless leadership rolls at hard are succeed, forces will rout and may result in near total loss of all forces. Characters face hard rolls to escape. Refugees have a good chance of getting run down.
0 or less: Decisive defeat. Forces rout unless leadership succeeds at daunting. Forces completely lost on fail, but even on a success will be 80% losses. PCs will all take damage, and have to make difficult rolls to escape. Loss of all PCs is likely, captured PCs can potentially be rescued in GM events. Refugees likely to all be lost.
Players getting a spectacular or inhuman success can still cover for other players botches/fails to reduce the damage they take, and remove the loss of victory points.
Characters using magic have the option to use magic to self-sacrifice, in One Final Moment of Glory. They can decide to do so even after rolling, if they botch. If they do so, they are treated as having an inhuman success for the round, all failures/botches of everyone else are treated as simple successes, and the battle gets another round.
Bsaed on the size of the PC forces and how defensible it is, PCs will get a number of rounds for the battle, and each round of battle they will win or lose a number of Victory Points towards a final total. This is to represent doing as much damage, and as strong a fight as they can manage before they are overwhelmed, and only in truly fantastic results can they hope to stop or rout that part of the horde. Each round will have a mass check for fighting, with PCs contributing towards victory, and the roll will be at normal, hard, or daunting based on the battle leaders' success rolls and the overall difficulty of the fight. Most @checks will be at least at hard, and badly outnumbered fights will all @check at daunting with a limited number of rounds, making getting a significant amount of Victory Points effectively impossible.
A character contributing with normal actions will win 1 victory point on a simple success, and 2 points on a spectacular success, and 4 on an inhuman success. Failure will result in damage, as well as -1 point to the total, and -2 for a botch. Using magic will multiply the success values by 5, so 5/10/20 for points, but after three uses of magic in a battle, characters begin to tire, and will need to do increasingly difficult rolls to use it, and start taking damage from the strain that begins to compound.
Victory Values:
300: Decisive victory. The horde is stopped at this point, the domain is saved, and the refugees in this region will all make it to Arx. In addition, the forces when they do reach Arx will be significantly weaker. Losses of forces 20 percent or less.
200: Victory. The refugees make it to Arx, domain survives. Army losses 20-40%. The horde is slowed but marching around the domain.
100: Domain contested but being overrun. Enemy forces are stalled, and refugees will make it to Arx, but the domain will have to be abandoned and make a fighting withdrawl to Arx. Characters can withdrawal easily. Army losses 60% or less.
50: Domain defense is collapsing and very quickly overrun. Unless leadership rolls at hard are succeed, forces will rout and may result in near total loss of all forces. Characters face hard rolls to escape. Refugees have a good chance of getting run down.
0 or less: Decisive defeat. Forces rout unless leadership succeeds at daunting. Forces completely lost on fail, but even on a success will be 80% losses. PCs will all take damage, and have to make difficult rolls to escape. Loss of all PCs is likely, captured PCs can potentially be rescued in GM events. Refugees likely to all be lost.
Players getting a spectacular or inhuman success can still cover for other players botches/fails to reduce the damage they take, and remove the loss of victory points.
Characters using magic have the option to use magic to self-sacrifice, in One Final Moment of Glory. They can decide to do so even after rolling, if they botch. If they do so, they are treated as having an inhuman success for the round, all failures/botches of everyone else are treated as simple successes, and the battle gets another round.