Dead Reign: Large Combats

[Shotgun Jolly]

Hey.

Does anyone know if the rules for "Large Mob" Combat is still in the Dead Reign RPG?


There were talks of these rules a few months back in the other forums, and it seemed very interesting. Can anything can be said about how it works? or what its like?

Seeing the book is susposed to be shipped tomorrow.. its not like a huge secert or anything is it?

[NMI]

Let me flip through my copy and I will let you know.

[DtMK]

I got my copy and flipped through it, I admit I didn't immediately see it. It's one of the big things I was looking forward to, especially since my current game is gearing up into large scale combat. Without those rules, it's quite possible my party's going to be a TPK.

[filo_clarke]

Flamethrowers too! I am not talking a can of hairspray and a lighter, I am talking Grade A Military class flamethrowers (or the equivalent). Something like this should affect atleast the arms, mainbody and head.

Do NOT light Zombies on fire, unless you are prepared to fight flaming Zombies!

[filo_clarke]

Well, I wouldnt do so indoors, but in the right environment, it could work... outdoors, open plains

Sure, open plains standing on dry grass, or surrounded by scrub; nothing could possibly go wrong. Frankly, in the highly unlikely instance where I found that a flamethrower was my primary weapon, I would want to be in a damp, open-air, gravel quarrie.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

yeah, I didnt see anything specific about large scale combat.
Something I would change that would help with that though...
Explosives!
With the Zombies, we have SDC by location for arms, hands, feet, legs, mainbody & head.
Why would a grenade with say a 10ft blast radius only do damage to the mainbody? I would have it affect the whole body of the target.

Flamethrowers too! I am not talking a can of hairspray and a lighter, I am talking Grade A Military class flamethrowers (or the equivalent). Something like this should affect atleast the arms, mainbody and head.

while that would help a lot and be realistic. Try the bookkeeping with that on a large scale. Then get back to us.

[The Galactus Kid]

Well, I wouldnt do so indoors, but in the right environment, it could work... outdoors, open plains

Sure, open plains standing on dry grass, or surrounded by scrub; nothing could possibly go wrong. Frankly, in the highly unlikely instance where I found that a flamethrower was my primary weapon, I would want to be in a damp, open-air, gravel quarrie.

Salt flats

[AlexM]

The biggest problem zombie hunters face is the Convergence, described starting on page 26. The number of zombies doubles every 30 seconds. If you don't have a plan, even flamethrowers won't save you. See Fighting Zombies starting on page 56.




Alex Marciniszyn

[Shotgun Jolly]

Alex is right!

You really need to plan to live when it comes to zombies. After the inital outbreak. If you managed to get to safety and survive the first 48 or so hours. Simple planning should take you the rest of the way.

I found that traps or Ambushes are great tactics. I also found that gorrila style warfare is also good way to limit the numbers.

Now, I dont have the book yet. So I am not sure what references Alex is talking about. But taking out mass amounts of zombies, should be easy 'if' you have a plan.. and a good one at that.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

yeah, I didnt see anything specific about large scale combat.
Something I would change that would help with that though...
Explosives!
With the Zombies, we have SDC by location for arms, hands, feet, legs, mainbody & head.
Why would a grenade with say a 10ft blast radius only do damage to the mainbody? I would have it affect the whole body of the target.

Flamethrowers too! I am not talking a can of hairspray and a lighter, I am talking Grade A Military class flamethrowers (or the equivalent). Something like this should affect atleast the arms, mainbody and head.

while that would help a lot and be realistic. Try the bookkeeping with that on a large scale. Then get back to us.

Average out the SDC for each hit location for 1 zombie. Use that as the baseline for the entire horde of undead about to eat baby susie.
Throw a grenade. Lets say you end up on the damage roll doing 50 SDC. Since we are talking blast radius, we are down to 25 SDC. Say in that horde there are 20 zombies. Figure about 10 of them are in the blast radius. Each of those 10 take 25 SDC to each of their hit locations. If 25 SDC was enough to blow the limbs off of one zombie, then figure it blew the limbs off of all of the ones in the blast radius. Or you could be somewhat mean and say that out of those 10 that were in the blast radius, only 7 of them took any of the blast radius damage, the other 3 were shielded by those that got hit.

Simple!

ok, so it blew off limbs, but did it kill the zombie, err re-kill the zombie? cause that's all that matters, anything else is more bookkeeping for the GM.

[Brian Manning]

What kind of "mob combat" was everyone expecting (I only ask because I'm curious)? I would love to see something along those lines, but I thought that was more like army vs army type of stuff (awesome for Rifts). Are you guys talking more about a few vs many? I mean that would be cool too, but if you're already down to that level, why is there a need for mob combat? There are a few rules for things like point blank or extremely close firearms use, slowing/stopping zombies, and melee weapons getting stuck, so that on top of the typical close quarters combat stuff from Palladium seems like a solid offering for this type of game.

There are plenty of warnings about actually engaging in combat with the hordes, plus typical tactics used by the reapers, so keeping those things in mind, any mass effect tactics would just need some minor thought (like acyd byrn mentioned with the grenade...I imagine a few claymore mines placed at chest/head level would do some work as well). I mean you're dealing with a large wave of relentless feeding machines, they don't make dodge rolls. You could go all ewok on them with your tactics and traps.

If you're wild enough to attack large groups then perhaps there should be some large scale rules, but for the most part a lot of the combat (if you're out to survive) will most likely be small scale rescue, and clearing out confined areas. The World War Z Yonkers incident would probably be a good idea of what to expect when dealing with large numbers (MILLIONS! just plain freaky man).

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

great for scenes and one that works mechanically are the mob/swarm rules like they have in DnD. You can actually have a battle with dozens if not hundreds of combatants without it taking 4 days to run and having to keep track of that many opponents.

such things can easily be adapted to the PB system.

[gaaahhhh]

Nuke them from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

[Shotgun Jolly]

You can actually have a battle with dozens if not hundreds of combatants without it taking 4 days to run and having to keep track of that many opponents.

I am not familiar with that aspect of D&D. Can you elaobrate a little bit on that?

Thanks
SGJ

[NMI]

great for scenes and one that works mechanically are the mob/swarm rules like they have in DnD. You can actually have a battle with dozens if not hundreds of combatants without it taking 4 days to run and having to keep track of that many opponents.

such things can easily be adapted to the PB system.

Which version of D&D are you speaking of?

[gaaahhhh]

great for scenes and one that works mechanically are the mob/swarm rules like they have in DnD. You can actually have a battle with dozens if not hundreds of combatants without it taking 4 days to run and having to keep track of that many opponents.

such things can easily be adapted to the PB system.

Which version of D&D are you speaking of?

The Companion Rules for the Frank Mentzer edition (known as BECMI D&D) had a mass combat system. AD&D first and second edition both had optional mass combat supplements, but the second edition book was largely an attempt to get into the miniatures wargame market.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

in DnD 3.5 in the first Monster Manuel or the Cityscape book, they have rules for swarms and mobs. Swarms are for critters while mobs are for humanoids. Its a great way to have huge battle, against a few characters without having to keep track of dozens of combatants.

Basically the groups count as one creature. It attacks as one, takes damage as one and so on and so on. Basically when you do damage to the mob, you have killed off a few of its members or whatever, when it attacks you, it is as if a couple to a dozen of its members have caught up to you and started pulling you apart, biting you, cursing your grandmother or whatever.

I never got the opportunity to do it, but I was planning of having a mighty ninja battle with mobs of ninja vs. my samurai player characters. Best way to mechanically run a "Ninja Scroll" like encounter. Now to be very clear, the GM has to be on his game, describing the action. As each shot into the horde takes down a zombie and maybe one next to it. The rules lose a lot of their appeal if its "I shot the zombie horde." "It takes 5 hit points and continues on."

[DtMK]

It seems that the mass combat question would have to come down to numbers and speed. If you have a bunch of slow moving Slouchers coming at you, you'll have a better chance to get more hits in against them compared to Fast Attackers. If they're taking their actions to move towards you and you have projectile weapons, you have a much better chance to pick them off until you have to reload.

There could be something said for slow moving attackers in melee combat as well, if you can whittle them down before they grab you and swarm. But a single person against three or more fast moving attackers, charging you like hungry animals? Yikes.