Strongholds and Followers | How to handle Warfare Units and Retainers

Hello!

I recently picked up a supplement by Matt Colville called Strongholds and Followers. Within this supplement, there are several new sets of rules related to a number of subjects. Two of those subjects are Retainers and Warfare.

I have been puzzling on how to incorporate those units into FG in a way that will not disrupt combat too heavily. None of the solutions I've thought of (few that they may be) have really stood out as optimal, and I wanted to submit the question to the community, as I'm sure it will come up with others looking for the same thing.

To do my best to summarize what Retainers and Warfare units are intended to do in the supplement:

Retainers:
Specifically, Retainers are intended to be lower level NPCs that follow you around to help you in combat, but are heavily simplified to keep from having to upkeep 2 full characters.
These Retainers are intended to use "Health Levels" as their HP, they don't carry specialized equipment, they only take one "action", operate on your initiative, and generally are meant to be more of a supporter of your PC.
My main issue with making these Retainers FULL NPCs that follow the Party everywhere is that I have 5 PCs in my current game. If each of them were to bring a follower, I'd be dealing with 10 friendlies, which could quickly complicate spacing as well as action economy.

My proposed solution to this was to simply say "your Retainer occupies your same 5ft space, so you don't have a token for them". Obviously this falls apart when a front-liner has a mage retainer, or when a PC wants to send a retainer in front of them. It just doesn't seem elegant, but it also seems preferable to having the PCs cart around an extra character to every adventure. Then I'd have to start killing off Retainers real fast... :P

Any suggestions on how others would handle such a "cling-on" character would be appreciated.


Warfare Units
These are the real issue in the entirety of the supplement when converting it to FG. These units are essentially batches of military creatures that will fight other batches of military creatures in a separate encounter that happens along-side a normal PCs vs Bad Creatures encounter. It's essentially to add depth and consequence to fights, and to assist in simulating "Mass Combat" that you'd likely encounter when dealing with powerful items and forces that bring kingdoms to bear.

My current thought is to simply try to move these onto an NPC template and fudge some stats so it makes sense. Currently, the stats on a Warfare unit are:
Attack - Attack Roll (D20) against enemy Defense.
Defense - Does the attack roll hit?
Power - Does the hitting attack do any real damage (D20)
Toughness - Does the Power roll beat the Toughness roll?
Morale - Deals with several things, but ultimately serves as modifier for rolls to test the "Will" of a unit to keep fighting.
Size - Determines the hit die of the unit, which is incremented down or up depending on various events (mostly down).
Cost - Amount of gold the unit costs based on all of its attributes.

They also get Traits and Special Orders (kinda like abilities) that they can do during a battle.

I am very hesitant to throw these as NPCs into the Combat Tracker, as that might REALLY flood it if we're dealing with 10 warfare units and 10+ combatants in the encounter (which seems plausible). Then again, I can't think of a better way to display them. If I was to do it this way, there wouldn't really be automatic rolls and damage, or if there was I'd need to do some major customization.

Any thoughts or remarks are appreciated. This is kind of just a placement since the ideas have been rattling around in my head, and I wanted to get some other thoughts. Sorry if it seems poorly expressed.

Thanks!

For retainers either make them as PCs or NPCs that the players control. Whatever method you use they’ll need to be on the CT if they are going to be part of a combat. You don’t really have a choice there. If the retainers level up then you would also want to create these as classes and so you would need to make them PCs. Another reason to make them PCs is if they get a share of XP. Then they need to be in the party sheet.

Mass combat is trickier since you can’t really automate much of it. You certainly need a token and again if they are going to be in combat and it is possible to roll and damage them you’ll need them on the CT as well. The other option would be to do it all theatre of the mind. Another thought is that it might be done with Story Templates.

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Originally Posted by Zacchaeus

For retainers either make them as PCs or NPCs that the players control. Whatever method you use they’ll need to be on the CT if they are going to be part of a combat. You don’t really have a choice there. If the retainers level up then you would also want to create these as classes and so you would need to make them PCs. Another reason to make them PCs is if they get a share of XP. Then they need to be in the party sheet.

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I suspect you're right in this. The thing about Retainers is they're intended to be super pared down so they're simpler to run. In FG, it might not really make a difference, since everything can be automated. I like the idea about the XP, which I might be able to use to push players away from ALWAYS bringing their Retainer.

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Originally Posted by Zacchaeus

Mass combat is trickier since you can’t really automate much of it. You certainly need a token and again if they are going to be in combat and it is possible to roll and damage them you’ll need them on the CT as well. The other option would be to do it all theatre of the mind. Another thought is that it might be done with Story Templates.

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The Warfare units are actually always meant to be Theater of the Mind. It's meant to take place outside of the normal players and their encounter, but also maintain some level of control for the players on the battle. That's why I'd like to have some way for players to track the units and roll for their attacks without having to crowd the combat tracker with them.

The story template is something I hadn't thought of. Could you explain a bit of what that would look like?

I can’t really say how or even if this could work in a story template since I haven’t seen the book yet. It was just a random thought really.

Both of these concepts go back decades, to at least AD&D (1e). The problems with them are still the same, and you have caught on to the major issues with using the concepts.

Here are my thoughts;
I don't use or allow "adventuring" retainers unless the party is under sized. 5PC's? Then no adventuring retainers. 1, 2 or 3 PC's, then if the party wants them ok and then why not just make secondary characters?

To me, "adventuring" retainers are those that engage in combat. Other retainers may just stay in camp, or behind the lines (not casting spells or doing ranged attacks) or might just stay in town and take care of the PC's interests (especially useful if they have a "stronghold" of some type.

In short, I don't like retainers like they are usually presented (or really in any way). They take away from the PC's being the heroes, add complexity and book keeping, and if the DM plays it in one realistic way, they actually become a liability to the party. The only time I like them is when they are used as trusted advisers, etc that do things behind the scenes (such as manage the castle the party owns, etc).

One other aspect to this, if you give every character in a party of 5 a retainer, and the party is composed of characters that have animal companions and familiars, you could easily have 15 creatures to track, making things even worse.

Warfare Units, again, nothing new (except the name). Why do you want to use them? There are lots of ways to handle mass combat, from a DM fiat/hand-wave, to detailing every individual and various "unit" type methods in between. Usually I find it annoying, but I have played in a miniatures wargame approach to a combat (one of the Dragon Lance adventures) years ago that was enjoyable, but there we had a large table, unit miniatures and spent many hours over several days to resolve the single combat. Not something I would want to do often (once a decade or so is good).

I will add, to use these things like intended in FG, someone might want to write an extension like DOE Locations to handle such things. But, the issues are still the same :)

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Originally Posted by LordEntrails

Both of these concepts go back decades, to at least AD&D (1e). The problems with them are still the same, and you have caught on to the major issues with using the concepts.

Here are my thoughts;
I don't use or allow "adventuring" retainers unless the party is under sized. 5PC's? Then no adventuring retainers. 1, 2 or 3 PC's, then if the party wants them ok and then why not just make secondary characters?

To me, "adventuring" retainers are those that engage in combat. Other retainers may just stay in camp, or behind the lines (not casting spells or doing ranged attacks) or might just stay in town and take care of the PC's interests (especially useful if they have a "stronghold" of some type.

In short, I don't like retainers like they are usually presented (or really in any way). They take away from the PC's being the heroes, add complexity and book keeping, and if the DM plays it in one realistic way, they actually become a liability to the party. The only time I like them is when they are used as trusted advisers, etc that do things behind the scenes (such as manage the castle the party owns, etc).

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You make good points here, and I think they really do sit on a dividing line, where if they were simpler and easier to run in combat, they wouldn't be as cool. Make them more complicated, and you basically have PCs. I might make an exception for "personal" quests, where the PC whose quest it is gets to bring their follower along, but I think generally keeping them as Lieutenants at the home base will be the best option. Thank you for the additional input.

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Originally Posted by LordEntrails

Warfare Units, again, nothing new (except the name). Why do you want to use them? There are lots of ways to handle mass combat, from a DM fiat/hand-wave, to detailing every individual and various "unit" type methods in between. Usually I find it annoying, but I have played in a miniatures wargame approach to a combat (one of the Dragon Lance adventures) years ago that was enjoyable, but there we had a large table, unit miniatures and spent many hours over several days to resolve the single combat. Not something I would want to do often (once a decade or so is good).

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I'm certainly the kind of guy that can get into an epic wargame battle with a ton of minis and a long-time setup, but I don't think all of my players are. The nice thing about the system Colville has designed is that it's made to be highly conceptual. He even included a "simple" warfare system that is handled through percentages alone, without any "orders" being given in combat.

Ultimately, what I want out of combat is a sense of scale. When the players start messing around with the major rulers of the land, the major rulers need a way to make the players go "uh-oh". When your PCs are magic wielding monster smashers, it takes a lot to scare them. Hundreds of enemies at once is scary, and it would cause them to make some hard decisions in who they ally with to get troops to defend.

And at the end of the day, I think it's generally a cool fantasy to say "I have 500 raging barbarians under my control, and now I'm going to sack this town". Hand waving works for some of that, but there's a reason we use dice in DnD (at least for me). It's to add some verisimilitude to the encounter, and let the player feel like they earned it. Rolling to see how your barbarians fare against the town guard or the knights who came to defend the town adds something for most people I feel.

I do thank you for the insight, and it's good/bad to know that this has been an ongoing struggle for people. I've only just recently started with DnD, about 6 months ago. I love hearing about the old problems that still aren't fixed.

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Originally Posted by SRPigeon

I do thank you for the insight, and it's good/bad to know that this has been an ongoing struggle for people. I've only just recently started with DnD, about 6 months ago. I love hearing about the old problems that still aren't fixed.

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Glad you like the thoughts.

As for a solution, there really isn't one that fits all situations. I guess when we go full computer simulation game, then you can have the computer handle all that stuff with "full" detail. Until then though, it's a trade off. No one system is going to meet the story or gaming objective. I agree such encounters should have some randomness to it, so just hand-waving or DM fiat is not ideal (imo), and of course, running each of those 500 barbarians with individual attacks and hit points, well, that would painful even with each one individually tracked/managed. Things like BattleSystem and Strongholds & Followers are good attempts at what you are hoping to do. You can also do things like make up random table of the outcome or impact of each hour of army combat. Lots of ways to get there, you'll just have to figure out what suits your needs. (And realize no system is ideal and you just might not get it right the first time.)

Do note, the recently released Unearthed Arcana (on Wotc's site) is about retainers or hirelings (dif name, mostly the same thing), so that will give you another thought/view on retainers.

There are, I think three different versions of the retainer/companion concept on DMs Guild that I've come across, plus now this one and the most recent unearthed arcana as mentioned by LordEntrails. And after all of that, I still haven't seen anything that handles them better than the way LordEntrails suggested in post #5. I have experimented with a lot of different ideas over the years and I end up either adding one as a full NPC if the game needs it or the story benefits from it; otherwise I just use minimally developed NPCs for simplicity.

As for mass combat, usually a variation of the 4e skill challenge works wonders for the scale plus letting the PCs interact with it and help guide things. I am a huge fan of ancient epics like Troy and the Mahabharata or the stories of the Three Kingdoms (ancient China) where heroes majorly swung the tide of battle by direct actions. So coming up with scenes where the flow of battle is influenceable based on the success or failure of a duel or holding a defensive point for long enough that reinforcements arrive, or stopping some monstrous creature, or preventing a magic/religious ritual, or negotiating with a potential ally or betrayer of the enemy etc. String three to five of these along with narrative of the flow of battle usually is how I handle it.