Wars and Warbands (Homebrew Rules)

Welcome to the Wars and Warbands fan-module for Dungeons and Dragons 5e. This simple addon allows you to run a large army, should that be your fantasy plan, and command battlefields in a quick and fun way that makes the best use of the Fifth Edition ruleset.

As you read through this module, you'll become acquainted with the basic types of Battles, as well as the Morale, Reputation, Units, Battledfields, and Orders.

## Warcamp

Your warcamp is where your soldiers go when they are not used in battle. Soldiers are hired to fight in wars, not go dungeon delving, so when you are not fighting a tactical battle, they will camp down in a secure location.

The warcamp can be made either in a location of your choice, or to follow you at a reasonable distance. If your army are led by commanders of sufficient ability, they can even be ordered to head to a certain location and await you there.

While in your Warcamp, you can pay a fee to add additional abilities to your units. If your warband is camped outside a friendly (or occupied) town or city with a large populace (DM Discretion), you are able to recruit and rest your soldiers. Pay the appropriate gold fee per unit to restore them to full HP.

## Hiring a Warband

The basic element of this module is the party's Warband. A Warband is a small group that the players, as a whole, command. The Warband is comprised of units, who act as player-controlled pieces on the battlefield.

### Recruitment

In order to recruit a Warband, the party must have access to at least 1 Commander. A Commander is an NPC who leads a type of unit on the battlefield, their personality and skills can make them valuable assets. The Commander determines the unit's stats, HP, AC, and attacks a unit can make on the battlefield, as well as potentially special moves they have access to.

A Commander will only join your Warband if your Reputation is at or higher than their Reputation Threshold. For more information, please see the sections below on Reputation and Commanders.

A commander must be on friendly terms with the party, or have a reason to fight for them.

### Resupply (Healing)

When one is in a friendly town, they can run a recruitment drive. This is used to replenish Units that have suffered grievous injuries in battle, as well as to rest the soldiers who remain within it. This is a multi-step process-

1. The Party arrives in a friendly town with a large population.
2. The Party picks a Unit to recover.
3. The Commander of a Unit has a fee- a set amount of money that must be paid to recruit their standard of soldiers. This amount is more expensive for more powerful commanders.
4. A member of the party rolls either a persuasion, performance, or deception check. For every point higher than the Unit's AC, the Unit recovers by 1. Overflow is discarded.
5. If Deception was used, the Warband's Reputation takes damage equal to the unit's AC.
6. If a recruitment roll fails, the party member can no longer attempt to recruit until they have left the settlement in question and taken a long rest.

### Outside of Battle

A Warband takes a long time to move and the soldiers are paid to fight in clear wars, not dungeon delving. When you go off to complete more classic D&D quests, your Warband will assemble in a battlecamp and await your next battle. You may ask Commanders to join you adventuring, they may agree at the DM's discretion. They will act as party-aligned NPCs on whatever quests you undertake.

It is advised that no more than two commanders be allowed to leave the camp at any one time.

## Morale and Reputation

Your Warband starts with a Morale and Reputation of 0. As you engage in battles with them, your reputation as leaders will rise based on your actions. Your Morale and Reputation can be between 300 and -300.

### Morale

Morale is how happy your Warband is, it's high when the victories are coming in, when the food and drink is good, and when the coin is there, and low when it isn't. A high Morale of over 200 halves the cost of Recovering your units.

### Reputation

Reputation is how the people consider you, whether you're a noble defender and bringer of justice, or a cruel and villainous army. A high Reputation of over 200 means you may get Advantage in persuasion with commonfolk.

## Commanders and Units

*Please check the Units (Wars and Warbands) page for detailed stats on basic unit types.*

A unit is an abstract reputation of a group of soldiers on a Battlefield. The stats of a unit depend on their Commander. The unit's commander relays your orders to the unit, and leads them directly into battle. A Commander grants a Unit their Stats and abilties, as explained below...

### Loyalty

A Commander has a Loyalty Type and Threshold. A Loyalty type is either Reputation or Morale, and the Threshold is the minimum it can be before they and their soldiers will attempt to desert your Warband. The threshold is also used when convincing them to join your Warband. A Commander who is known as a powerful knight may require a high Reputation, while one who is an unscrupulous warrior may demand you keep them happy and require good Morale.

When you request they join you, you add your group's appropriate Reputation or Morale to the Persuasion or Deception check. If the result is higher than their Threshold, they will agree (Excluding DM fiat.)

### Type

The Type is the kind of unit this Commander leads. There are several basic types, and each has weaknesses and advantages.

* **Warriors**- Warriors use spears, axes, and swords to engage the enemy in melee combat. They're slow-moving but deal heavy damage. Warriors have the deflect attack special that allows them to intercept an attack that hits an adjacent ally.
* **Archers**- Archers attack at a distance, but aren't great when the enemy is near. Archers can use their bows to hit enemies from up to six squares away.
* **Cavalry**- Cavalry charge in on horseback, they move fast and have a high AC, but lower health. Their Cavalry Charge ability allows them to move and then attack in the same turn.
* **Mages**- Mages can block areas of the battlefield, halting enemy movement and controlling the battlefield.

### Stats

As well as their own stats, a Commander has a second Stat sheet, which is used for their Battlefield unit. In this sheet, Hit Points represents an abstraction of number of soldiers and their health, while AC is the overall difficulty to hit the unit.

### Action

On a player's turn, they can order one unit to perform an action. This can be movement or one of their abilities.

Some Commanders may have additional unique abilties. These abilities may grant them extra versatility in combat, so chasing down rumours of fearsome warriors or winning the loyalty of noble knights may make your army stronger than ever.

### Desertion

After losing a battle, if your Warband's Reputation or Morale is lower than a Commander's Threshold, that Commander and their unit may choose to desert (Depending on DM's choice). They will either see you in private to discuss their issues, giving you a chance to persuade (or threaten) them into obedience, or may just disappear into the night. Particularly unscrupulous Commanders may instead choose to try and kill you, or loot you and abandon you with nothing.

## Battles and Battlefield

*In Progress...*

A Battle takes place on a large-scale Battlefield map, which isn't perfectly scaled but instead shows a general overview of the battlefield, including dangers that may be seen.

### Begin a Battle

A battle is started when you move your unit to a location that you have received intelligence contains an enemy army- such as a city in their possession or a warband camp. They can also start when you are ambushed.

The Player Army can field one Unit per player and each player can decide which unit they field, however any player can command any unit during the battle, if they should choose to. Larger armies will move slower, but smaller groups will be more likely overwhelmed, so pick carefully.

### Initiative

At the start of the battle, your party rolls initiative from their own sheets, so do the enemy units. Turn order goes as a standard battle, but instead of controlling your player character, you give orders to a unit under your command. You can

### On Your Turn

On your turn, you have a number of Orders equal to half your level (Rounded down) + your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1). Each order can be used to command a unit under your banner to take an Action, Move, or (if at the edge of the battlefield) retreat. You can use all of your orders on one unit, or if you prefer you can split them up between units for a coordinated assault.

Each unit can only perform one of each action, one movement, one dash, per turn. They can be ordered to perform the same action again by another player on their turn, or by you on your next. Communicate with your party to discuss the best tactical decisions to make.

Multiple players can give orders to the same unit on their turn.

### Movement

A unit can move up to it's max movement. If the route chosen to move them crosses over difficult terrain or is trapped, then their movement speed for that turn is halved. If they have already moved more than half their movement once they reach the dangerous terrain, they can move no further, and will have halved movement on every turn that is started in the difficult terrain.

For example, should a unit with a 6-square movement speed hit rough terrain on their 4th square, they will immediately stop, and the next time they move, they will have a max speed of 3.

### Enemy Turn

On an enemy warband's turn, each unit in their warband may move or use an ability. This also occurs on the turn of allied warbands that are not player controlled.

### Expose the Leader

Exposing the Leader requires you to accomplish goals that are either given to you by a superior before the battle, or achieve one of the following:

* Two or fewer enemy units remain.
* The enemy leader demands you face them.
* The castle gates have received critical damage (Siege).
* You successfully intimidate them or start a parley.

### Press the Attack

When the enemy Leader is exposed, (Or at any point during a siege, see below), your party can Press the Attack.

Pressing the Attack means that you engage in a classic D&D battle against the enemy Leader and their nearby units. Once you choose to Press the Attack, you roll Initiative once more and switch to a more standard D&D battle, playing as your characters.

If you Press the Attack in a parley, you will instead meet under a banner of peace, this can allow you to negotiate a surrender (yours or theirs), or attack when their guard is down, if you don't mind the risk to your reputation...

## Aftermath

Once a battle ends the Party must manage the aftermath. Their decisions will affect the Morale, Reputation, and Integrity of their army, as well as reaping fiscal rewards for themselves.

### Victory

When you are victorious, the party rolls a d20 and adds the result to their Reputation and Morale. They must now choose what to do with the defeated army, their possessions, how to divide spoils of war, and more.

* ***Slaughter***- Your troops will raid and take whatever they want, and massacre any who aren't able to hide. *Raises your Morale by 2d20, but lower your Reputation by the same result.*
* ***Pillage***- Let your troops pillage the battlefield, taking the spoils of war for themselves and your own. You may be called cruel bandits, but your coinpurses will be bulging. *Raises your Morale by 1d20, but lower your reputation by the same result.*
* ***Leave***- Leave the area and return to camp. This does not affect your Morale or Reputation any further.
* ***Garrison***- Garrison troops to keep the peace in the town. Separating with some of their allies and being forced on guard duty will sadden your men, but provide safety to the people. *Raises your Reputation by 1d20, but lowers your Morale by the same result.*
* ***Reparations***- Order your troops to repair damages, heal the wounded, and donate their money to the survivors or their families. Your troops won't like having to cut their celebrations short, but the people will. *This noble act will raise your reputation by 2d20, but lower your Morale by the same result.*

After this, if your Morale or Reputation dips below a Commander's threshold, the DM will choose how they react- they may threaten to desert or attack you in the night.

### Defeat

When you are defeated, the DM rolls a D20 and subtracts that from your Morale and Reputation, as rumours spread from your enemies and your troops are discontented at the loss. If a player had the "Inspiring Leader" feat, they can give a speech to their assembled troops, and raise the troops Morale by the result of a Persuasion Check.

After this, if your Morale or Reputation dips below a Commander's threshold, the DM will choose how they react- they may threaten to desert or attack you in the night.