Battles Under the Birthright Battle System

[Lord Eldred]

Is it me or does it seem that there is no real advantage to having a higher melee or missile rating or defense rating for that matter? In every battle it seems that it is really luck and the number of hits that your unit can take that controls the outcome. Is this fair? What do you think? Does anyone have a better way?

[Temujin]

I recommend using the Alternate Battle Method(1) by Brandon Quina from the old br.net site(couldn't find it on this one yet). It uses a 10-sided dice for attacks between units, comparing the differences between the attack and defense values, the roll indicates the results, and the morale is handled with a 8-sided dice. It handled combat fairly well, and levies finally get trampled by knight units like a knife in butter =)

As a side-note, the potentially most potent ability a unit can have is its defense and number of hits. A unit with a high defense and high number of hits can generally withstand combat without being destroyed(or at least pulled back from front lines when it becomes too much damaged), and so whoever has elite units generally wins the battle except in overwhelming odds. Which is what it should be anyways =)

[Lawgiver]

I've got a system based on percentage dice. Unfortunately I don't have it typed up. Perhaps I will add it to my webpage at a later date...

Basically it coverts the scores to a percentage of roughly 10% per pt. value. an attack score of 4 has to potential to destroy 40% of an enemy unit. If the defenders have 2 for defense (20%) the difference is 20%. The attacker rolls 1d10 and adds 20%. Charging Knights would all but maul Levies having a potential of destorying 60% of the levy unit. There are several other factors and modifiers for commanders, terrain, etc., but thats the basics. The only downside is when two units of equal attack and defense spar, the damage is only 1d10%. BUt that is semi-realistic. The basic rules do not allow for very pitched and drawn out battles.

[Chaos Lord Arioch]

The Battles do seem to be based on luck. Even with overwhelming odds one can see his knights decimated by a levy (OK I may be exaggerating a bit)

I hope this is addressed with the major campaign (I would hate to see my Sidhe whipped by a couple goblins;).

[Lord Valkyr]

Lawgiver I like your idea if you have a list up let me know if i can use it. I used the 1d10 version you spoke of earlier but that percentage addition sounds like a better system

[Green Knight]

There should be a lot of luck involved in battles - war is always uncertain. Still, the BR battle rules DO generate some odd results. IMO the whole systems sucks - it just doesn't have the level of detail needed to represent a battle. In fact, I have yet to meet a single BR DM who hasn't changed the battle rules.

[Lord Eldred]

In the dice system, do the sword vs flags etc. become meaningless?