So I'm putting together a Kingmaker campaign, and I, like many others, feel like the mass combat systems leave something to be desired.
To make the "military commander" aspect more memorable, I figured I'd ditch (or at least, heavily modify) the rules as presented. Hence the title. I'd like to segue into wargaming rules.
But I'm not interested in dropping hundreds of dollars, I don't care about painting the figures, or anything like that. See, for the regular, non-wargaming combat encounters, I'm planning on running the encounters digitally (MapTool or http://www.pfrpg.com.au/ ), or else just laminating maps and writing on them with expo markers, sans-minis.
So, does anybody have any tips on a system I can use? And is it possible to do it digitally?
If you want to wait a month, Paizo is publishing Ultimate Campaign, which are going to have revamped rules for both mass combat and kingdom building from Kingmaker.
If you want to do it on a table without minis - you could cut sheets of paper into regiment sized pieces and use them to represent the troops, then move those around the table. Most battle plans in books are shown with coloured blocks showing the different troop types. So your wargame almost becomes a Tac-Table set up rather than a table top war game.
A bit like this
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Zama-battleplan.png
Once you have put some movement into it, you could use the base rules given to resolve the combat - with a modifier for the player tactics.
I've used some of the Total War games in the past for this sort of thing. Could try and reskin some of the units perhaps. My players loved it.
Total War, as in the computer game? Intriguing. But problematic. I don't know much about the series (Map editor? Modding community?), but I think it's a bigger departure from the D&D shtick than I'd be comfortable with. I'd love to get a hold of something tabletop-ish with a similar idea, though.
If you want to wait a month, Paizo is publishing Ultimate Campaign, which are going to have revamped rules for both mass combat and kingdom building from Kingmaker.
That... slipped completely under my radar. But It looks awesome! Checking that out, for sure.
you could cut sheets of paper into regiment sized pieces and use them to represent the troops, then move those around the table.
Yeah, I was thinking of that too (but cardboard, not paper). Historically, tacticians have laid out battle plans with blocks of wood on a map, so I don't see any reason why this shouldn't work.
So far, the rules for mass combat as laid out in 3.5's Heroes of Battle seem like the best bet, except that it assumes that the players will be grunts in the army, not as tactical commanders. I could probably make it work, but it's not ideal. It looks like Ultimate Campaign may be more up my alley, but it's too early to tell.
You know, I looked over Heroes of Battle, and it really doesn't give rules for actual mass combat, that I could find. It just suggests that you simulate it by pitting "maneuver elements" of maybe 5-10 creatures against each other and calling its outcome indicative of the entire army's, and that's only when the PC's are involved. It recommends that you simulate the entire battle ahead of time (presumably by pitting the encounter groups of NPC's against each other), but again that's assuming the PCs are simply in the armies. If they are moving the armies around themselves, all of that would quickly become irrelevent.
So I'm still looking for a wargame which attaches stats to entire fighting groups, and gives rules for their attrition, routing, etc. A D&D-compatible setting would be ideal, but I'm mostly interested in seeing the mechanics of attack, defense, etc. And when Ultimate Campaign comes out, I might mix and match rules :)
You might, also, want to take a loo at this page.
http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/
I haven't checked any of the rule sets out, but there might be something in there that does the job.
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You may also want to check out Warpath. It's a Pathfinder compatible product and is based on units that you can write on 3x5 index cards and move around. If you write the unit stats on the formation card it's pretty convenient. Combat is very similar to standard Pathfinder combat (not a whole lot of additional rules to learn) with stats adjusted for unit size.
Just another thought.
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I have always heard good things about Warpath and Fields of Blood. I am currently using a modded Battlesystem set of rules in my game that I got off the boards here, although which thread, I would be hard pressed to remember. If you check the mass combat system threads, you should be able to track down several sets of house rules, including that one if you are interested.
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I almost recommended Fields of Blood but it has a couple issues.
1) I found the unit building/maintaining a bit on the complex side. Not that it was TOO complex, just as a subsystem tacked on to the roleplaying game it required a bit much effort.
2) The unit building was connected to the kingdom rules in Fields of Blood that are completely different from the Kingmaker/Pathfinder rules. Now I really like the kingdom rules from FoB, but if you're already using Kingmaker rules the conversion would be extensive.
Other than the unit construction, the mass combat rules were solid. I also like how their system zooms in from a 12 mile hex to move armies, to a 4 mile hex to jockey for position on the battlefield and then down to a battlefield map where you move and combat units. Interesting idea.
I almost recommended Fields of Blood but it has a couple issues.
1) I found the unit building/maintaining a bit on the complex side. Not that it was TOO complex, just as a subsystem tacked on to the roleplaying game it required a bit much effort.
2) The unit building was connected to the kingdom rules in Fields of Blood that are completely different from the Kingmaker/Pathfinder rules. Now I really like the kingdom rules from FoB, but if you're already using Kingmaker rules the conversion would be extensive.Other than the unit construction, the mass combat rules were solid. I also like how their system zooms in from a 12 mile hex to move armies, to a 4 mile hex to jockey for position on the battlefield and then down to a battlefield map where you move and combat units. Interesting idea.
Personally, I always preferred Kingmaker for the the Kingdom building, but really enjoyed FoB for the Mass Combat. The trick would be combining the two in a way that made sense...