Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Mass Combat

http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/2017_UAMassCombat_MCUA_v1.pdf

I wasn't expecting an article today...looks like a rehash of the old Mass Combat rules.

I was really hoping for the Mystic....

Pretty radically different from the previous attempt, much more abstract and fast paced; which is good, because it has been gestating for two years!
[MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] has been talking up various DM options in the works; looks like those will get the exposure for a little bit, now.

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[zaratan]

I think most of us are thinkig too big. A 800BR unit is more to a legendary unit than uncommon. Normally, most part of units will be CR 1/8 to 1/2. So, most units don't reach BR100. Need to be some advantage of a BR 78 to a BR 76, make a +1 for each 50BR isn't a balanced option.
The real problem is that in this actual system, is better to put all strong guys in just one unit and use only that one. So, lots of low BR units, low number of high BR or a middle term, need to be competitive, each one in your way.

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[DEFCON 1]

Are you seriously asking that? Read the mass combat rules or this thread alone either will answer your question.

Nope. Doesn't answer my question at all.

You said "I know that UA is for testing things but there needs to be a base level of quality in place."

Why? Why does there have to be a "base level of quality"? Seems to me they're getting exactly what they wanted... a whole mass of people number-crunching the crap out of these rules. It's probably saved Mike hours of time of him having to do it himself.

Everybody here seems to think that the guys over at the D&D department have nothing better to do with their day than just brainstorm ideas and then spend their afternoons detailing every single thing out. My guess is that they have just a little bit more to do that that. Meetings. Meetings. More meetings. Meetings with editors. Meetings with art departments. Meetings with company honchos. Meetings with PR.

My wife is a manager at a market research firm, and she tells me quite clearly that she spends most of her days stuck in meetings and very little doing the actual work. So with the (lack of) size of the D&D design and development department... Mike, Jeremy and company probably brainstorm when they can (I think Mike even said that he came up with these Mass Combat ideas on a trip or vacation or something), put things together as simple as possible... and then throws it out to all of us or their alpha playtest teams to cull through the data and tell them what does and doesn't work.

Which is EXACTLY what all of you are doing as playtesters. And thus, you are performing your jobs admirably and you should be commended for that.

But to think that it's their job to only give us things that are 50% or 75% or 90% polished and then hand them over to all of us to put a spit shine on them is kind of silly in my opinion. Playtesting isn't "Early Adoption". The idea that because you go to their website they're gonna give you a "Preview" of new rules before anyone else will get in when the book gets published. Playtesting is just that... TESTING stuff. Stuff that might be polished... as well as stuff that might be just a fleeting idea that one of them had and he wants a quick rundown from some players to tell him whether he's on the right track.

But if you personally have an issue with that... then it's obvious to me that you shouldn't be a playtester. Because being a playtester isn't just about getting "all the good stuff early." It's about doing actual grunt work. And you do it because you want to help shape the game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nope. Doesn't answer my question at all.

You said "I know that UA is for testing things but there needs to be a base level of quality in place."

Why? Why does there have to be a "base level of quality"? Seems to me they're getting exactly what they wanted... a whole mass of people number-crunching the crap out of these rules. It's probably saved Mike hours of time of him having to do it himself.

Everybody here seems to think that the guys over at the D&D department have nothing better to do with their day than just brainstorm ideas and then spend their afternoons detailing every single thing out. My guess is that they have just a little bit more to do that that. Meetings. Meetings. More meetings. Meetings with editors. Meetings with art departments. Meetings with company honchos. Meetings with PR.

My wife is a manager at a market research firm, and she tells me quite clearly that she spends most of her days stuck in meetings and very little doing the actual work. So with the (lack of) size of the D&D design and development department... Mike, Jeremy and company probably brainstorm when they can (I think Mike even said that he came up with these Mass Combat ideas on a trip or vacation or something), put things together as simple as possible... and then throws it out to all of us or their alpha playtest teams to cull through the data and tell them what does and doesn't work.

Which is EXACTLY what all of you are doing as playtesters. And thus, you are performing your jobs admirably and you should be commended for that.

But to think that it's their job to only give us things that are 50% or 75% or 90% polished and then hand them over to all of us to put a spit shine on them is kind of silly in my opinion. Playtesting isn't "Early Adoption". The idea that because you go to their website they're gonna give you a "Preview" of new rules before anyone else will get in when the book gets published. Playtesting is just that... TESTING stuff. Stuff that might be polished... as well as stuff that might be just a fleeting idea that one of them had and he wants a quick rundown from some players to tell him whether he's on the right track.

But if you personally have an issue with that... then it's obvious to me that you shouldn't be a playtester. Because being a playtester isn't just about getting "all the good stuff early." It's about doing actual grunt work. And you do it because you want to help shape the game.

I see what you are saying Defcon and agree for the most part.

However, the idea about a minimum amount of quality is that for most of the actually useful posts in this thread, we are not talking about the rules they provided anymore.

Talking about using BR to have smaller modifiers, turning each unit into just an inflated creatures, and ect, are not things expected by this system. The basic number crunching for this system shows that (IMO) nothing about it works to an acceptable degree. It is largely just telling us when there are no needs for these rules.

What sort of useful playtesting can we do? What we are currently doing isn't playtesting, it is game design. And the usual surveys we get are not going to have room for someone to explain their new game design, it is only going to ask how these rules worked. To which the only real answer is, not at all they are terrible and let me explain why.

So, unless they are reading these forums, they are not getting anything more useful than why this product failed, which is useful, but :failing on every count because battles are too static, too slow, and a d20 variance isn't enough, while morale and traditional military strategies are near meanignless" isn't as useful as the things we could find with a system that was of higher quality and we could simply find weakpoints in the math.

 

[Krachek]

The attack resolution is a completely lazy work. 0/10.
I suspect they dont even run a single simulation.
A BR 30 unit, cannot even damage a BR 50 unit. It is completely at the opposite of the bound accuracy principle.
If they have run even a single simulation they will have found out this.

But the BR table is a clever idea. They can build on this.

 

[Istbor]

The more I read the UA as presented and this thread, the more I am convinced that we are only seeing part of the picture.

It has been pointed out that BR contesting BR is wonky, and that anyone should be able to see that. My guess would be they already know this, and that discussion and other points of the rules presented are what they are after.

For instance, I think a unit of 400 creatures is too large to be the base. That is the size of whole garrisons and mercenary companies. They surely won't all be the same unit type, but a mix of ranged, caster, and infantry, not to mention cavalry and special cases. Should there be a way to scale up or down unit sizes for different scopes of conflict? Certainly.
I still very much enjoy the idea of 'zooming' in once the Player characters get engaged in combat. Then, once the 'minute' passes, they get to resume seeing how the rest of the battle is playing out.

From what is presented, I think the simple draw win/lose is too static. As typical D&D combats go, a lot can happen in a 'minute' so I would like to see attrition being dealt to both the winning and losing unit. To me at least, it only makes sense. It would obviously be more severe for the losing side than the unit that won the toss.

I like the idea of the BR table and conversion it makes it simple, but there has to be more to it. I don't think they are hoping to test the math on us. It is too out of whack for 5e in the current state. I am thinking they just want us to think about the conversion and the table itself. Does it feel right? Is it simple and intuitive?

There is a lot more I see from this, but I will spare you all the text.

All in all, I like this. I like what potential is there, and I love that they are still thinking about mass combat rules. It has me excited that support for this aspect of the game is potentially coming down the pipe.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

I see what you are saying Defcon and agree for the most part.

However, the idea about a minimum amount of quality is that for most of the actually useful posts in this thread, we are not talking about the rules they provided anymore.

What sort of useful playtesting can we do? What we are currently doing isn't playtesting, it is game design. And the usual surveys we get are not going to have room for someone to explain their new game design, it is only going to ask how these rules worked. To which the only real answer is, not at all they are terrible and let me explain why.

Wel we don't know what they are testing for, it might even be a test of the survey feedback system.

there are obvious problems with the mass combat rules, but does that result in less or more people then usual taking the survey ?
such data might be interesting to have when analising the feedback that was given on the subclass articles they have been releasing over the past weeks.

 

[DEFCON 1]

So, unless they are reading these forums, they are not getting anything more useful than why this product failed, which is useful, but :failing on every count because battles are too static, too slow, and a d20 variance isn't enough, while morale and traditional military strategies are near meanignless" isn't as useful as the things we could find with a system that was of higher quality and we could simply find weakpoints in the math.

Trevor Kidd over at WotC does occasionally come over here and read these threads, so you aren't talking completely in a vacuum. And I would hazard a guess that when the time comes for the survey and they receive a shiteload of responses that all say "The math as it stands does not work at all and I can't even test it effectively.")... if the folks over there are really taken aback by that and want to further know why... chances are pretty good that Trevor will come here, to reddit, to rpg.net and get the full scoop on the situation (including all the math.)

But also here's the other thing we have to remember... oftentimes they deliberately post playtest options with "unchecked math" knowing full well that fixing the math later is the easy part. What is the hard part is knowing whether the actual format of what they are giving us will be embraced. And for the most part... it seems like that's been embraced okay. Or at the very least the format has been embraced more positively than the previous version of their mass combat rules did. It's appears as though it feels better to more people here. So if that's what they also get in the survey responses... they know they can in this general direction and just fix the math.

But you all do also have a strong point when you say that the math could be so bad that you aren't even able to give a proper analysis on the feel of the rules format. So in that regard for at least a bunch of you... the article is basically a worthless endeavor and there's nothing WotC can glean from it. The question then comes down to whether Mike & Co. would agree with that assessment, or would there be enough firmer opinions (on both sides) for them to take legitimate lesson from and make their decisions on whether to continue down the path in design?

For that, I have no idea. But I do believe they will glean something from this at the end of the day. And for all we know... exactly what they were looking for.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I see what you are saying Defcon and agree for the most part.

However, the idea about a minimum amount of quality is that for most of the actually useful posts in this thread, we are not talking about the rules they provided anymore.

We are, however, talking about the direction of the basic ideas they provided. Especially the idea of BR, which unlike CR is linear.

Thanks to the UA, I now have at least a minimally-workable BR-based subsystem that I can try out. That wouldn't have happened without this UA article, so as far as I'm concerned I'm quite happy with Mike Mearl's work here. The fact that I think I'm better than he is at the actual nitty-gritty of math and mechanical design doesn't mean he didn't do a good job at giving me ideas to steal.

 

[Elderbrain]

and if this was like I propose to convert unit to one single creature following the monster construction in DMG?
10 BR in 1 level of CR table (page 274), starting at 1/8

100 orcs are like 20 BR, or 1 creature of 1/2 (exactly 1 orc), just get orc stats
5 young red dragons 60 BR, 1 creature of a CR 4 creature, exactly red dragon wyrmling

If orc lose 33% of HP, his DPR, AC and attack bonus will fall to a 1/4 CR, more 33% hp (of the initial one) to a 1/8 and 0 total dead (probably will retreat with bad morale)
if dragon lose 14,28%, will drop to CR 3 stats... and so.

you can weaken greater units and some features of the creatures can work to.
In fact will be easier to calculate if only use DMG table in page 274, ignoring the rest of CR calculation... but if math isn't a problem for you...

View attachment 81466

I like this idea! Making each army (or army unit) count as one "monster" built using the table is quick and simple.

 

[fjw70]

If you are using miniatures then you should be allowed the same number of creatures per mini. For example if I am fighting dwarves against ogres then my Ogre mini will be larger and take up more space than a dwarf mini.

I agree the math is weird right now but I like the direction this is headed.