A Whole Damn Army Simplified

I have discovered a shortcut for making Group/Horde monsters into A Whole Damn Army of its own

If two questions would grant the same tag don’t worry about it. If you like you can adjust damage or HP by 2 to reflect the tag that would be repeated, but it’s not necessary.

What I'm about to tell you is strictly not RAW... but it is simple. You ready for it? Here Goes:

Take any Core example monster of Horde or Group organization sizes and add 1 instance of Uncanny Endurance (+4 HP) for every multiple of the party's number. So a party of 4-5 members fights a horde of 50 whatever as if it had 10-12 levels of Uncanny Endurance.

If they number more than 50 or so, you should probably also add Huge since a platoon is roughly 4 squads of 10. That and 50 people probably don't fit into a house. This addition is optional though.

For the purposes of Damage From Multiple Creatures, add +1 per Uncanny Endurance (equal to +1 per multiple of the party's population) rather than one per individual monster. If the party has allies that make the ratio smaller, don't increase damage as much as normal (to reflect the fact that some of the damage goes to the players' allies). So for example, in the above 10-12 levels of uncanny endurance, the party would take the full +(levels) of damage if they were the only combatants. If they had 20 allies though, the ratio is 2/5 so players would take +4 damage instead of +12.

A Whole Damn Army: Taxation and Upkeep

So I saw the following in Dungeon World

A hovel

20 coins

A cottage

500 coins

A house

2,500 coins

A mansion

50,000 coins

A keep

75,000 coins

A castle

250,000 coins

A grand castle

1,000,000 coins

A month’s upkeep

1% of the cost

Given how much I've written about A Whole Damn Army there's probably enough there to make some assumptions about what kind of fees are charged by legitimate road authorities, and The King's Tax Collectors. A good baseline is that the highest ranking feudal figure in the settlement's home determines the monthly tax based on a value roughly twice the amount of a month's upkeep (so a city supporting "A Grand Castle" has up to 20,000 coins in its coffers.) 

Resources

This article suggests that a "An orc warchief’s tribute” is reasonably 1 point of Resources." and that each extra point of resources is an order of magnitude (roughly a factor of 10). That means the Grand Castle settlement is worth ~3 Resource, the Keep or Castle settlements are worth 2, and the Mansion at 1000 coins is worth 1 Resource.

Taxation and Population

If we assume the majority of a population lives in cottages, and half of the upkeep is taxation, that amounts to a tax of 3 coins per person.  This means "A Grand Castle" needs a supporting population around 7,000 (6,666 to be more specific), a Castle needs around 900 (call it a thousand), a Keep needs 250, and a mansion 200. So...

A Village is less than 200 people

A Town could reasonably be 200-500

A Keep is probably 500-1000

A City is 1-10,000, with the largest medieval city ever being no more than a million or so (It would take less than 50,000 to make "A dragon's mound of coins")

A Whole Damn Army Example: The Hellfire Imperium

Taking in the rules expressed in this, that, and the other entry, my Into the Heart of the Dragon game features a nation-state called the Hellfire Imperium, and I can stat out the nation-state's Capital City, called Dis. Dis is responsible for the creation of A Whole Damn Army of Imps. We start with the base stats of Dis.

• Dis is a City

By default a city is Moderate, Steady, Guard, Market, and Guild (Iniquities). It also has Oaths with at least two other steadings (Abaddon, Sheol), usually a town and a keep. If the city has trade with at least one steading and fealty from at least one steading choose one (as a capital city, it does):

• The city has permanent defenses, like walls: +Defenses, Oath (Ikisat)

The city has one problem

• supernatural defenses: +Defenses, Blight (Is a literal Hell on Earth)

These upgrade Dis' Defenses to Battalion, thus the city has a force with these stats on hand:

A Whole Damn Battalion                                                       Horde, Huge, Organized, Intelligent,

Terrifying

Tridents and Fireballs (b[2d6+7] damage 1 piercing)                                                    24 HP 7 Armor

Reach, Forceful, Near, Far

Special Qualities: A Metric Shitload of demons!

• Shatter Their Morale! (any)
• Loose! (Archers)
• Hold the Lines! (Pikes)

Because they are practically Hell on Earth, in addition to these base defenses, they can conscript enough Lost Souls to also field the following army (who are not inexperienced, even though they are conscripted from the general population).

All the Damned Souls                                                               Horde, Huge, Cautious, Intelligent,

Terrifying

Wall of Woes (w[2d6] damage* and heal the same amount)                                         32 HP 7 Armor

Reach, Forceful, Near, Far

Special Qualities: A Metric Shitload of souls!,

• Surround them! (Infantry)
• Their souls are forfeit!

*These souls are loathe to cause any more harm than they may already have for fear they will be further punished, yet they are still willing due to their inability to escape said punishment.

If they have several days notice of an attack, they can call for another Whole Damn Army from the combined resources of Abaddon and Sheol--which would have +5 HP and an extra move--and some Dragon Riders from Ikisat.

Resources
At Moderate Prosperity with a 32 HP citizenry earning the Wages of Sin, they have coffers no larger than 250,000,000 (6 points)

At 24 HP, the Battalion has roughly 2,500,000 worth of military supplies.(4 points)

A Whole Damn Imperium

Conscripting a Whole Damn Army

It takes at least a City of Steady Population to conscript A Whole Damn Army, while a Steady Keep can conscript a Whole Damn Battalion, and a Steady Town can conscript a Whole Damn Platoon. If a population is better than steady, you can raise it in a steading one step smaller. Whenever they mobilize, the steading reduces in size by one step. If it is worse than steady, you need a steading one step larger. These conscripts are “Green” until they are trained and maintained They have -7 HP and deal (w[2d6+whatever] damage) no piercing, since they are not seasoned veterans. Also if they have no notable commander, they don’t add +whatever, it’s just w[2d6]. These statistics are modified as per Fortified Superiority if applicable.

Guard Forces

A Whole Damn Army is the equivalent of Legion Defenses, a Battalion is Battalion, and a Platoon is Garrison Defenses. Guard Defenses or less are not worth representing with A Whole Damn military unit (at least not without conscription above). If an army has trained for a season, or been to more than 3 real battles, they are no longer considered “Green”.

Collapse

You can militarily cause a steading to shrink based on its “Conscription” statistics as well. For example, if you have a Whole Damn Platoon, you need a steady town. A Whole Damn Platoon only gets 15 HP, but a conscripted one from a town only has 8 HP (and deals the worst damage roll as noted above). If any city has been reduced to 0 HP, it becomes a village in exodus. If they surrender beforehand, they are reduced to a size appropriate to their HP (benchmarks of 8, 15, and 23 HP, modified by Fortified). Prosperity is reduced a similar number of steps.

Want

When a steading is pressed to provide for an army larger than they could conscript other than their Defenses indicate, they gain Want (military and adventuring goods) and reduce prosperity by one step.

Resources (Everything from here down is Optional)

By default, a Whole Damn Army has far less stability than a steading due to not really having much in the way of consistent trade. They take what they can, and consume it. This is represented by Resources. By default resources are +0. You gain resources by lowering the Prosperity of a city (1 point for every step in reduction, and 1 point per every lost Resource), or by winning a battle against another army. Divide HP by 5 to determine how many points of Resources you get. for a steading of Moderate Prosperity. Add or subtract 1 per level of Prosperity deviating from that. “An orc warchief’s tribute” is reasonably 1 point of Resources.  Resources increase by about a point for every factor of 10 above that. You can spend Resources after battle to gain the following:

• +2 HP in the form of new recruits, healing supplies from the infirmary, and so on. (For every +6 HP gained, you can add an additional move (or 5 if you want to go with the original rule, 5 HP))
• +1 piercing damage for the whole of the next battle costs 2 Resource points.

Multiple Resource Coin Value
Whenever you are attacking a group of targets with multiple resource values, you don't add them up to determine the cash value of your earnings for the battle. For example, in a fight against a 6 Resource Whole Damn Army and a city of conscripts (22 HP or 4 Resource) you don't gain 10 Resource. You would need four 6 Resource Point  sources to have the fight be worth 7 Resource (it takes 4 250s to get to 1,000, 4 2,500s to get to 10,000 and so on). It would be fair to say that if you fight any fight involving a force of one level lower than your own, you gain 1 Resource (though not mathematically accurate). If the force is 2 points lower than yours, you need to fight two such forces to gain a point (again, fair but not mathematically accurate) and so on.

Opportunity

The normal rule for opportunity states: 

Subtract the distance (in rations) between the steadings from the steading with enmity’s defenses. If the result is greater than the other steading’s defenses +defense for each step of size difference (village to town, town to keep, keep to city) they definitely attack.

Under these rules, subtract the distance in Resources between the steadings instead to determine if a force will attack. If the distance is greater than the resources, the attacking force loses 2 HP per additional needed Resource.

Surplus and Settling Down

A Whole Damn Army can use resources once the war is over to set up a steading. They gain the default steading appropriate to their army size plus 1 tag per point of resource they spend to advance the steading. 

Commanding a Whole Damn Army

So I recently made a blog and G+ post about size, tactics, and morale of military units in light of my Whole Damn Army creature. A question was posed "Do you see this as characters interacting with GM controlled armies, or allowing players to control armies as well?" in the context of me potentially making a book out of mass combats in Dungeon World. So I while I'm still not sure I want to create a whole book about mass combat, the idea was intriguing to discern the difference between a GM move and a player move as the distinction is relevant. Consider the moster as written, a pile of GM moves. Player moves are going to be based on different assumptions of GM moves.

Damage
As a GM move- Wall of Steel deals (b[2d6+7] damage, 1 piercing). This assumes a couple of things

1) a soldier deals 1d6 damage, so a group of them deals the best of 2d6

2) with enough adversaries at least one of them will get through for 1 piercing

3) The unit will be lead by a fairly reliable character equivalent in combat to a knight who deals (b[2d10] damage), so it's reasonable to attribute the +7 to the Knight. We can assume a knight probably has some score of 14 (reserving 16 for PCs), which means a modifier of +1. Because the knight swings the better of 2d10s, we assume an average of a 5 and a 6 and use that to come to +7. A leader that leads through fear and Intimidation could use STR, one who uses charm and likability uses CHA, one who uses superior memory of military history, and actively being educated uses INT, and one who has a "feel" of battle through experience with it uses WIS.

As a Player move- assumptions 1-3 above suggest that a fighter with a d10 should probably get STR of +3 ASAP to get (b[2d6+9] damage, 1 piercing). Other players could progress their optimal score to that point if it's one of the modifiers listed above. Each lower dice type reduces the 9 by a point (meaning d6+3 will hit the NPC Knight at even damage by virtue of taking the better of a 3 and a 4). GMs can also ignore the average and change the damage code for players to (b[2d6+2dx] damage, 1 piercing) where x is the type for your class if he wants really swingy combats.

Hold the Lines

As a GM move- Armies are not afraid of players, but they might be afraid of players' armies. Whether they are afraid of each other is a function of size (a smaller army being afraid of a larger one) and whether they are fanatic or frenzied. 

As a Player Move- Roll Defy Danger Subtract your army's HP from the other army's HP. if negative that means you have a bigger army and are more likely to Defy. Because you are a notable individual, you may add half of your HP to your army's HP for intimidation purposes.

Sound the Reinforcements

As a GM move- Since those reinforcement numbers count as HP, it would be reasonable to say that this recovers 1d8 HP, but a lot of people don't like rolling for GM stuff if they can avoid it so they can use 4 points. This move can be used as many times as appropriate to the fiction

As a Player move- Roll 1d8 to determine how many points each unit heals. You can do this once per unit of reinforcements you narratively have. Remember also that the default Whole Damn Army is 2-3 units, so if you know you have more on the field, HP can go over 30.

• If you have Bardic Song, or can cast a Cure spell as a rote, you may use it on A Whole Damn Army.
• Some moves may also effect healing rate

Racial Tactics

This section will cover a number of moves that players can earn to reflect their race's heritage for war. They are not like racial starting moves, because almost no members of a race are required to be born great tacticians. They can however be learned as starting Racial moves if you have a reason to have war in your background. 

Dwarves

Dwarven Turtle

Dwarf units have shields that can interlock, while also allowing their polearms to protrude slightly. In return for changing damage to (w[2d6+3] damage) they gain +1 armor and can negate Artillery Superiority. This means that a unit with this move can disregard the Ignores Armor and Piercing tags on their opponents' moves.

The Stonefist Gambit

When dwarves following a commander with this move fight with either mountains or a cavern ceiling looming overhead deal +2 damage.

Liquid Courage

When a commander with this move uses a Keg of Dwarven Stout to carouse with his men, he may also heal them for 1d4 HP.

Elves

Elder Guardians

When elves following a commander with this move fight within sight of The Great Forest, they may deal +2 damage

Treetop Striders 

When elves following a commander with this move do battle within The Great Forest, they count as devious, and negate both devious and Engineering Superiority of their opponents. If the commander also has Elder Guardians, that it applies as well.

Mystical Warpaint

There is a plant that grows within The Great Forest that bolsters elven morale. When a commander with this move orders his men to apply it, they are considered to have +4 HP for the purposes of Hold the Line. That is, they cannot be terrified by a unit whose HP isn't 5 more than their own.

Halflings

Don't Disturb the Shire

When halflings following a commander with this move hide in the hilly terrain surrounding their homeland, they are short enough they can ambush for +1d6 damage.

Can't Touch Dis

When halflings are fighting an army whose individual members are Large or Huge, or an actual creature that is Large or Huge, they gain +1 Armor.

Humans

Racist Bastard

Pick another race. Whenever you fight that race, you deal +2 damage. It's probably fair to allow you to pick multiple races for this one, but if you pick very many it may also be fair to assassinate you in your sleep.

Inquisitorial

When you fight an army whose leader's alignment opposes yours, you deal +2 damage. Alternately, if you are a cleric, you may take this bonus against people who are heretical from your god's point of view if the GM and group allow it. It's probably fair to pick multiple religions but if you pick very many it may also be fair to assassinate you in your sleep.

Pincer Maneuver

Whenever you have Engineering or devious units, you do not have to use your +1d6 damage on the first attack.

Orcs and Half Orcs

Berserker

Whenever orcs work themselves into a frenzy before battle, they are considered to have +4 HP for the purposes of Hold the Line. That is, they cannot be terrified by a unit whose HP isn't 5 more than their own. If you are their commander, and you order a retreat, you must Defy Danger to avoid becoming the enemy.

Troll Blood Stew
If a commander with this move has allied with trolls asks them to augment the rations with their restorative blood, he may roll +Stat for the stat used with Wall of Steel. On any 10+ over the course of the next battle, his unit heals 2 HP. (for NPCs, this occurs when the PCs roll 6-).

Race Trained

You may take a move not belonging to your race only if you either have a background of significant time with them, or spend enough in game time that the advance follows logically from the fiction. Statements within the move that refer to the race you chose refer to you.

Relevant Core Rulebook and Class Warfare Moves

Dwarf

When you share a drink with someone, you may parley with them using CON instead of CHA.

Halfling

You sing the healing songs of spring and brook. When you make camp, you and your allies heal +1d6.

When you attack with a ranged weapon, deal +2 damage.

Human

Once per battle you may re-roll a single damage roll (yours or someone else’s).

Mass Combat Revisited: A Whole Damn Army, and subsequent divisions thereof

Because I'd already codified how a large military unit could work with the existing Horde rules and constitute an entire horde rather than giving each soldier statistics here, Curiosity overtook me and I decided to find out what a A Whole Damn Army would look like in the Dungeon World Codex. This led to a posting and a discussion in the Dungeon World Tavern G+ community Some banter expanded the scope of what the Whole Damn Army could do. Once the whole army was ironed out there was further questioning on the line of writing an Army playbook. While I'm not sure I want to do that, the army does deserve something of a closer look. Here goes

Size

A Whole Damn Army should represent at least 1000 soldiers, but reasonably up to 5,000

Morale

A Whole Damn Army is immune to being Terrified by a smaller army (less HP)

Superiority

This article discusses Superiority. Rather than modifying its text, use the rules below

• For mobility superiority, each "doubling" in the original rule provides armor 1
• Armor superiority is only available for units with a default armor above 4. Use their new armor as the base.
• Artillery Superiority has 4 Piercing (or more). The attack doesn't do more damage than normal, just 4 damage blows through armor
• Engineering superiority or other armies with devious may ambush their foes, dealing +1d6 damage on the first attack.
• Fortified armies (those that are garrisoned in a settlement) have several advantages. If they are at least Steady they add +2 HP, and another +2 for each of Growing or Booming. If they are at least a Town, they gain +1 armor, while a Keep gains +2 and a City gains +3. Keeps and cities also have Artillery superiority, while any smaller steading has Ranged and all have Transport. A town or better also has Sound the Reinforcements.

Scaling Down

A Whole Damn Army is an abstraction of 2-3 units plus a commanding officer. It is reasonable to divide them into military units. A Whole Damn Platoon only gets 15 HP, and isn't big enough to Shatter Their Morale. They get one other move of the ones listed. A Whole Damn Battalion gets that move, plus Shatter Their Morale and has 22 HP.

Scaling Up

Having more than 30 HP for any Dungeon Worlds monster was decidedly obnoxious, but it's not unreasonable to give armies over 5000 men one extra move per +5 HP. Even I don't recommend giving any more HP out after you've got all the moves.

If you're interested in playing these, or any of my other Dungeon World ideas, you can join my discord, DW Linky Here!

More about Mass Combat in Dungeon Worlds

For those of you just joining in, you'll find the original blog post on mass combat here. I'm coming back to that because some things could stand to have further detail, and I hear there is some more information on Mass Combat since I wrote it.

Population and Battle "Turns"

The size of a battlefield determines how long it takes for the armies to kill each other off, if for no other reason than the fact that those in the front have to either die off or move so those in the back can have a go, and if they die off, the ones in the back have to wade through bodies.

Population                   Turn Length

Up to 100                    15 minutes

Up to 1,000                 30 minutes

Up to 10,000                1 hour

Up to 100,000              2 hours

Up to 1 million             4 hours

When considering soldiers in conveyances vs. other soldiers in conveyances, don't multiply by the size of their crew, but use the number of vessels/vehicles instead. So a battle of 5 ships vs. 4 counts as a population 100 or less battle.

Multiply the length of a turn by 2 if a whole unit has superior armor (3-4 points). Divide turn length by 2 if a whole unit has cartridge based firearms, or by 4 if they are capable of rapid fire. These also count for troop superiority.

Superiority

These rules are outdated Use the rules here, unless you don't want to use A Whole Damn Army.
As noted in the previous blog post, a side gets bonus damage based on a numerical advantage it has over the others, but this rule permits certain units to have more effect than their population would otherwise indicate.

Mobility

One component of superiority is how the unit moves. Each unit must have one of these

Aerial (Air)- This unit counts double against units that aren't either Aerial, Artillery, or Ranged.
Aquatic (Aq)- This unit counts double in liquid environments, and half outside them (if that's even possible). Amphibious (Amp) units overcome this limitation.
Foot (Ft)- This unit only gains superiority in tight spaces, such as indoors.

Mounted (Mtd)- The soldier and his mount are counted separately, and are doubled again vs foot soldiers.

Vehicular (Veh)- This unit counts double against units with Mtd mobility, and double again vs. those with Ft mobility.

Tactics

The other component of mobility is the kind of attacks they employ

Armored (Arm)- This unit is capable of reducing the average damage of its opposition's attack by half, and therefore counts as double vs. any attack that doesn't explicitly nullify or pierce armor.

Artillery (Art)- This unit negates armor superiority, and has superiority over any unit that is not armored.

Fortified (Frt)- This unit represents permanent civilizations, who have walled cities, or take to the streets and improvise riot barriers. It counts double its population vs. units without engineering. Hoarder tag.

Engineer (Eng)- This unit negates Fortified. Devious tag.

Ranged (Rng)- This unit counts double against mounted melee units, and double again vs. melee units with Foot mobility.

Reach (Rch)- Pikes and spears negate Mtd superiority, although the soldier and the horse count separately for population purposes.

Recon (Rcn)- This unit employs stealth, and counts double against units that move into territories it uses as cover. Stealthy tag.

Transport (Tpt/Tons)- This unit can transport the specified number of tons, or ten times that many humans. it always has Veh mobility.

All About Mooks

This post builds on a previous post I made about hordes and mass combat here: https://steelsmiter.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-subject-of-hordes-and-mass-combat-in.html it's inspired by the fact that in the Diablo series, there were creatures or fixtures that just generated and unloaded large numbers of low HP opponents. As mentioned in the link, I prefer to think a horde has one stat block, featuring one HP score for the entire horde, and that defeating this HP score doesn't necessarily annihilate the horde, but sends individual members scattering. That's sort of applicable in the Diablo series I guess, but I think it would be more appropriate to handle Diablo hordes entirely differently. Two moves are relevant to GMs of diablo based games:

Generate Encounter

When the party enters an undiscovered area, the GM rolls +nothing. *On a 10+, hold 3, *On a 7-9 hold 1. At any time in this area, you may spend 1 hold on the following:

• +1d6 mooks in a horde per player
• 1 normal monster
• A hidden room or event (roll again)

*on a 6-, The party gains 1 treasure roll without any particular risk.

Fight Mooks

A slang term for the hordes of standard-issue, disposable bad guys whom The Hero mows down with impunity. Also called "baddies", "goons," "scrubs," "drones," "small fry," "flunkies," "pawns," "toadies," "grunts," "minions," "lackeys," "underlings," "henchpersons," and "cannon fodder". When you fight mooks, roll +STR. On a 10+ choose 2, and on a 7-9 choose 1:

• you roll your damage normally, and take out that many mooks.
• you suffer no injury or condition.
• you are not slowed down, inconvenienced, or distracted from an objective on the other side of them.

On the subject of Hordes and Mass Combat in Dungeon World

I want to be clear to note what I'm about to say may be in direct violation of the canonical rules established in DW for hordes:

I don't really consider Horde HP to be the HP of one monster, I consider it to be the HP of the whole horde, and evaluate HP bonuses based on how much space the members would take up as a rank and file unit (although they are often not organized that way).Considering that an apocalypse dragon has less than 30 HP; I don't have any problem with assuming a pile of small monsters that takes up as much space as a cart would have 7 HP or more than a house full of them would have 11 HP collectively. I also think battles could be fairly resolved in this way with a little tweaking.

• Armies are always huge. They have a minimum of 11 HP.
• Most of the time, even though the entirety of an army may not have armor the bulk of it usually has leather (with a few chains and plates here and there) so they always have +1 or more Armor.
• Though individual soldiers aren't always in the fight, they often cycle who is on the front lines.This qualifies them for Uncanny Endurace (Giving them +4 HP bringing minimum HP to 15)
• Its armaments are vicious and obvious (wicked looking pikes, swords, etc probably qualify. Hell, torches and pitchforks probably qualify): +2 damage (or you could probably upgrade damage to a d8)
• It organizes into larger groups that it can call on for support: organized, write a move about calling on others for help.
• It’s as smart as a human or thereabouts: intelligent
• It actively defends itself with a shield or similar: cautious, +1 armor
• It collects trinkets that humans would consider valuable (gold, gems, secrets): hoarder

Dealing 15 damage to a huge army doesn't mean that all members are killed, it means that it no longer forms a cohesive group. Individual members might run away, defect, be impartial merchants, and so on. Civilians might not abhor damage but nonetheless, non-professional soldiers roll damage twice and take the worst result.

On the subject of damage, DW says:

If multiple creatures attack at once roll the highest damage among them and add +1 damage for each monster beyond the first.

This is impractical for armies sized in the thousands. Or more accurately, it is practical for armies numbering in the thousands against just the PCs but probably not against roughly equal armies where one of them happens to also contain the PCs. When two armies are going at each other and the party is involved with one army, the damage of the opposing army is modified by adding the numerical ratio of one to the other as a whole number (2 to 1, 3 to 1, 4 to 1, etc). If players are not in an army, and yet face a Horde, its size ratio is also subtracted from their damage. Thus if an opposing army has a 4 to 1 ratio, the army gets +4 damage every hit, and the players get -4 damage every hit. Larger armies add this to their dice roll and smaller ones subtract it. This represents the fact that the overabundance of targets is sufficient that the individual players draw far less individual attention. 

Player Damage

It's obviously true that an army doesn't literally have 15 HP, and a player doesn't literally take out an entire army in one attack, but it's fair to assume that each exchange represents several minutes, and that the players actions on a microcosmic scale have tactical effects that amount to dealing damage. In other words, if you deal 12 points to a 15 point army, you didn't kill thousands of men on your own, you made them retreat from a key point, or something of that nature.