We took Pitax with 3 "1 PC" Armies & a 200 man Fighter 2 army


Kingmaker

Grand Lodge

I'm pretty sure we didn't need the fighter army... It was over so fast it feels like we cheated.

We used Herolab to calculate our Armies

Synth Summoner 13
Archeologist Bard/DD 9/4
Cleric 13
Unbreakable Fighter 13 (Running the Army)

Has anybody else went the multi 1 man army route?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

*sigh*

The 'normal combat' and 'mass combat' systems are two different systems. They use different rules and can't be combined as simply as it seems you did.

The Offense Value (OV) of an army doesn't represent the ability of each individual creature to hit another individual creature in the way the attack modifier of a creature does. It represent the overall ability of a group of creatures (and their commanders, and their support from siege engines, etc.) to inflict significant damage to another group of creatures.

The same applies to Defense Value and AC. An army has no dodge bonus, no armor bonus, no shield bonus... It is obvious that the DV are almost almost lower than an individual creature's AC.

If you rolled your PC's to hit against the armies' DV, and you resisted the armies' attacks with your AC, clearly, you won easily.

The correct way to manage this kind of combat (PCs vs armies) would have been to allow the PC to hit with each attack ONE creature of the hundreds that composed Pitaxian armies... and then having each Pitaxian enemy make an attack against your PCs (that is, hundreds of d20 rolls, knowing that 1 on 20 would be a natural 20 and hit).

Needless to say, your team would have been squished.

So yes, you cheated.


What Chuck said.


A post exploring why attacking armies alone has no chance of success

Grand Lodge

Wow... *sigh* indeed. You appear to be working under the assumption we're stupid. If you're thinking we used our character sheets vs Army stat blocks you are misunderstanding.

My character was something along the lines of

ACR 4 (I think)
Offensive Modifier: +12
Damage Modifier: 0
Defenseive Value: 20
Movement: 2
HP: 18
Boon/tactic: Bloody but unbroken

The cleric was almost identical, And the Bard had Lower OM & DV (by ~2) but something like 28 HP.

So with this clarification what is your opinion.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Did you have fun? Was the "felt like cheating" more of a "whoo, hah! We're awesome!" kind of moment? If so, then you did it right.

On the other hand, if it felt like a let-down, then it probably wasn't such a good approach.

A couple of my players tried to look at the "what would my PC look like as an Army of 1" option, but I didn't let them. Mainly because I felt it wouldn't be fun for them (or the rest of the group), and wouldn't make any sense in the narrative. But with a different group of players, I can imagine thinking it could be the best way to go.

But then, I may have an atypical viewpoint - I'm in the process of completely revising the rest of Chapter 5 to eliminate the war entirely (replacing it with more subtle skirmishes and political maneuvering), because my group found the army rules to be - disappointing.

Dark Archive

We also augmented our main armies with multiple "one-man armies" and it was a lot of fun (and necessary to win!) Several of the characters were commanders of the armies and several went all "John Rambo" and went into battle by themselves.

And yes Chuck, you can convert a single creature to an army stat block.
I believe it's "CR (of individual) -8 (for Fine (1-man) army)" so most characters here are looking at being ACR 3 or 4 range.

I don't see how you could have taken out Pitax with ACR 3-4 armies though... even five of them. I thought Pitax had three ACR 7-9 armies or something. Dunno, been a while since we played this. (Or maybe our DM buffed them up...)


I can't comment on this considering I have no way to check and see if that's an accurate conversion of a PC to an army, and that I'm not particularly fond of the Mass Combat system. I know I probably wouldn't allow it as a GM though.

As mentioned in the thread Chuck linked, my players tried to do the one-person armies thing against a tiny troll force in book 2, and I used regular combat for that. I would do the same for this, converting the Pitax armies down to hordes (using the Troop subtype, perhaps) for the PCs to try to fight, rather than converting the PCs up to armies. And, also as mentioned in that thread, their chances of success would thusly be close to nil.

Grand Lodge

@Cintra Bristol The fight seemed too efficient on our part only one of us took damage. Mostly because the opposing armies attacked the larger group for 2 turns and after that we had them so far gone it didn't matter.

@Jenner2057 There was an army of Trolls and an army of Wyverns at the city. We caught the barbarian horde army in our territory and our fighter assumed control by beating the Barbarian Leader and we purchased the Catspaw group. Was there supposed to be more?

@Orthos Was there a chance for mass combat in book 2? The only Trolls I remember from around there was random encounters and Fort that had a 2 headed troll running the show (I think).


EDIT: Nevermind, you're a player, aren't you?

There's a guy here on the forum by the name of DM_aka_Dudemeister who rewrote much of Chapter 2; in his rewrite, among other things, he added a small troll army attack midway through the chapter, and had Hargulka's lair guarded by a pair of such armies.

I was going to say "go look up his thread", but if you're a player don't do so, as it's full of spoilers.

Grand Lodge

Orthos wrote:

EDIT: Nevermind, you're a player, aren't you?

There's a guy here on the forum by the name of DM_aka_Dudemeister who rewrote much of Chapter 2; in his rewrite, among other things, he added a small troll army attack midway through the chapter, and had Hargulka's lair guarded by a pair of such armies.

I was going to say "go look up his thread", but if you're a player don't do so, as it's full of spoilers.

That would've probably been more climatic than ours was. I think we cast haste (twice eventually) and we all but trampled over everything in their and fought the Boss Troll (with on the fly "spite" buffs).

Scarab Sages

I think a good approach as a GM is to do an "either or" type thing. If there is ANY PC solo, then he is adventuring and in "adventuring" mode. If there is a PC with an army, he is a portion of that army and can enhance them if he has ranks of profession(soldier).

We have done one mass combat fight early on and my players felt it was a big let down and rather clinical, sanitary, and over fast. Since then, I usually lay down minis as representative of groups of 5-20 army NPCs (on both sides), big ones for giants, dragons, etc, and of course the BBEGs. Then we let things rip, conducting all fights in "adventure mode". Its more epic feeling to us, and more reminiscent of the Battle of Pelennor Fields, rather than five minutes playing Risk or Axis and Allies (mass combat system).

At this point, your GM might consider a couple thoughts for the future:

- The PCs should never be the only lives at risk vs armies. There should be ally NPCs, preferably some vunerable ones around that require some looking after and some protecting. This is less the case if the PCs/armies are deep in enemy territory. However even in those situations, there should be wounded, spellcasters, healers, logistical supplies, etc. Even if you just describe these as fluff and hand wave them being "around" during mass combats, you should still penalize the PCs if they let the enemy destroy them. This is the difference between the Justice League fighting a team of villians on a deserted planet or in the middle of Metropolis. Once is far more epic than the other and I might add.. memorable.

- If the battle vs Pitax was quick and completely one-sided, dictated by individual characters, perhaps there is a faction there who believe the PCs got lucky. And perhaps that luck means that if they can neutralize a few individuals, they can regain their independence. Like blackmail, extortion, kidnapping, assassination, sabotaging relations between the players' kingdom and others, and all sorts of other nasty ways of giving the party headaches post victory. This won't put things back in the excitement category for the battle portion, but sort of transfers the challenge to what is normally the "mop-up" phase.

The Exchange

I have a question for everyone and I know this probably isn't the place to ask, but I'm going to be a rebel and ask anyway.

How should I handle a situation where the players attempt to target the commander of each army? I know if I just say they can't do it, there will be some complaining. How would you guys handle it?

-Car

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Caraldur wrote:

I have a question for everyone and I know this probably isn't the place to ask, but I'm going to be a rebel and ask anyway.

How should I handle a situation where the players attempt to target the commander of each army? I know if I just say they can't do it, there will be some complaining. How would you guys handle it?

-Car

If they are trying to target the opposing commander with their own army I'd say no. They are fighting as an army, and aiming an entire army at an individual among their own army isn't likely to happen.

But if they wanted to attempt to assassinate them personally I'd run it as a regular encounter with lots of support in the form of Mobs (like swarms but bigger) of Soldiers.


Wyrmholez wrote:
Caraldur wrote:

I have a question for everyone and I know this probably isn't the place to ask, but I'm going to be a rebel and ask anyway.

How should I handle a situation where the players attempt to target the commander of each army? I know if I just say they can't do it, there will be some complaining. How would you guys handle it?

-Car

If they are trying to target the opposing commander with their own army I'd say no. They are fighting as an army, and aiming an entire army at an individual among their own army isn't likely to happen.

But if they wanted to attempt to assassinate them personally I'd run it as a regular encounter with lots of support in the form of Mobs (like swarms but bigger) of Soldiers.

I'd do two things:

1) The players would need to do some scouting to locate the commander. (Lots of stealth roles).

2) I'd run the encounter with the commander (and depending on his rank) his guards and whatnot. PCs would options to prevent the rest of the army (troop subtype) from coming down on them.

3) If the PCs successfully assassinate the commander and get away, the next combat will involve the opposing army with a generic commander.

If you're talking about something where the PCs target the enemy commander during combat, I think it'd be kind of neat to run it as a performance combat. When commanders clash on the field, then the soldiers around them cheer, boo, etc.. The victory (whether it results in death or just one side running away) could provide a morale bonus to the side whose commander wins.


Wyrmholez wrote:

My character was something along the lines of

ACR 4 (I think)
Offensive Modifier: +12

The base offensive modifier would have been +4 rather than +12. It's straight ACR, with no bonuses. It's plausible for special tactics (none known until a battle is won) and class-based special abilities to increase this by a good amount, but increasing by +8 seems excessive. Do you recall what your army's OM-bonuses were for?

This detail alone may be enough reason for your overwhelming success :)

Grand Lodge

Are wrote:
Wyrmholez wrote:

My character was something along the lines of

ACR 4 (I think)
Offensive Modifier: +12

The base offensive modifier would have been +4 rather than +12. It's straight ACR, with no bonuses. It's plausible for special tactics (none known until a battle is won) and class-based special abilities to increase this by a good amount, but increasing by +8 seems excessive. Do you recall what your army's OM-bonuses were for?

This detail alone may be enough reason for your overwhelming success :)

Herolab gave me

Level 5 spells @ +5 OM
Eidolon @ +1 OM

and I added
Magic Weaponry @ +2 OM (I think)


There are some modifiers for special abilities, equipment, spellcasting abilities. +8 on top of ACR 4 might be possible.

Ninja'd!


Lessee.. ability to summon creeping doom. Ability to spam huge elementals, each lasting 12 minutes. Yeah, that would mess an army up.

I think the only thing that doesn't translate well is weapons, unless you had significant magical weaponry.

Grand Lodge

Tangaroa wrote:

Lessee.. ability to summon creeping doom. Ability to spam huge elementals, each lasting 12 minutes. Yeah, that would mess an army up.

I think the only thing that doesn't translate well is weapons, unless you had significant magical weaponry.

Maybe, +3 Amulet of Mighty Fists. 5 +3 Weapons for a 1 man army...


Well, this proves why the mass combat system really can't be used to play 1-man army...

A +5 bonus to OV because you can cast 5th level spell is ridiculous.

It makes sense for an army of 200 1th-level magus to have a +1 because they can cast 200 Color Spray spells per day...

It doesn't make sense for a single character to have a 5 times larger bonus because they can cast one powerful spell per day.

Grand Lodge

Chuckbab wrote:

Well, this proves why the mass combat system really can't be used to play 1-man army...

A +5 bonus to OV because you can cast 5th level spell is ridiculous.

It makes sense for an army of 200 1th-level magus to have a +1 because they can cast 200 Color Spray spells per day...

It doesn't make sense for a single character to have a 5 times larger bonus because they can cast one powerful spell per day.

I think an argument could be made that it's not a single 5th level/day spell but the culmination of several 1st-5th level spells throughout the day. A creeping doom, a d3 Huge Fire Elemental, and a magically Buffed Synth Summoner can cause a lot of havoc amidst an army.

But I do see your point 200 CL 1 magic missles would probably sting.

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.

There are so many problems with converting single characters to armies it's barely even worth trying to figure out a way to make it balanced. When my players asked about it I mentioned the exact same Magic Missile problem. A unit of 100 level 1 enemy mages can auto kill any character bar perhaps an enemy spell caster with a minor globe up, using usual game mechanics and mixing and matching with the mass battles rules simply doesn't work, for example, Haste will not give you any bonus in mass battle, nothing at all, despite its uses in normal fights.

Personally I ended up re-writing the entire mass battle system using the Fleet rules from Skull & Shackles as a base.

Of note, it also seems your GM might either be unsure what to do or is simply giving you wins (simply killing the leader of a Barbarian army doesn't make them all instantly follow you... maybe all focus their attacks on you sure). If an enemy commander see's a PC alone and with no backup... they'd be insane not to tell their troops to temporarily ignore the enemy army and murder the PC instead, killing one of the ruling council of an enemy kingdom would be a huge blow. Also bear in mind that he could have used the exact same principles himself, send in a single very tough enemy with class levels to murder your entire city back home, after all using the mass battle rules it would win...

In regards with how to deal with enemy commanders, this is what I told my PCs. "Most enemy commanders have bodyguards, if you fly over their army to attack or teleport next to them you'll face a huge number of foes, it will be VERY dangerous, you can attempt it if you like but if you all die, I am blameless. Hoooooooooowever. Once battle has been joined, once the armies are fighting, it is easier to fight your way towards an enemy commander, leading your troops, backed up by scores of men you may find it far easier to reach them and attempt to possibly behead the enemy army."

In practice what I did was allow them a personal fight against the enemy commander and his guards after 2-3 rounds of mass battle combat if they waited and chose to fight towards him. It turned mass battles into something personal and gave them a lot more feeling of having personally helped achieve victory when they were able to kill or drive off an enemy commander.


Quote:

In regards with how to deal with enemy commanders, this is what I told my PCs. "Most enemy commanders have bodyguards, if you fly over their army to attack or teleport next to them you'll face a huge number of foes, it will be VERY dangerous, you can attempt it if you like but if you all die, I am blameless. Hoooooooooowever. Once battle has been joined, once the armies are fighting, it is easier to fight your way towards an enemy commander, leading your troops, backed up by scores of men you may find it far easier to reach them and attempt to possibly behead the enemy army."

In practice what I did was allow them a personal fight against the enemy commander and his guards after 2-3 rounds of mass battle combat if they waited and chose to fight towards him. It turned mass battles into something personal and gave them a lot more feeling of having personally helped achieve victory when they were able to kill or drive off an enemy commander.

This is pretty much how I went as well. Lead in the armies to engage, then the PCs make their way through the battlefield, fighting as they go, and engage the enemy leadership and their personal guard directly.

Scarab Sages

Chuckbab wrote:

Well, this proves why the mass combat system really can't be used to play 1-man army...

A +5 bonus to OV because you can cast 5th level spell is ridiculous.

It makes sense for an army of 200 1th-level magus to have a +1 because they can cast 200 Color Spray spells per day...

It doesn't make sense for a single character to have a 5 times larger bonus because they can cast one powerful spell per day.

*cough*260 foot Wall of Fire 5/day*cough*

That will BBQ companies of troops at a time.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Certainly determining the appropriate Offensive Value to give to the character may have been an issue. That, plus the PCs not being targeted for two turns (letting an extra strong offense go un-attacked) probably made a big difference.

Not to say they should have lost necessarily - high level PCs can take on armies successfully. When only 20's hit, even 200 archers (or 1000 orc archers in a high level game I ran) can be survived by a single character for a while.


Bhrymm wrote:
Chuckbab wrote:

Well, this proves why the mass combat system really can't be used to play 1-man army...

A +5 bonus to OV because you can cast 5th level spell is ridiculous.

It makes sense for an army of 200 1th-level magus to have a +1 because they can cast 200 Color Spray spells per day...

It doesn't make sense for a single character to have a 5 times larger bonus because they can cast one powerful spell per day.

*cough*260 foot Wall of Fire 5/day*cough*

That will BBQ companies of troops at a time.

And any general who doesn't get his/her surviving troops away from that wall ASAP is an idiot and deserves the beating s/he gets.

And even then, after that spell is cast, it's one guy versus a whole lot of arrows or incoming spells.

Grand Lodge

Orthos wrote:

And any general who doesn't get his/her surviving troops away from that wall ASAP is an idiot and deserves the beating s/he gets.

And even then, after that spell is cast, it's one guy versus a whole lot of arrows or incoming spells.

I'd be willing to bet that the smoke generated by 260 feet of burning corpses would grant a fairly substantial miss chance vs an eclipse of arrows.

Suthainn wrote:
Of note, it also seems your GM might either be unsure what to do or is simply giving you wins (simply killing the leader of a Barbarian army doesn't make them all instantly follow you... maybe all focus their attacks on you sure). If an enemy commander see's a PC alone and with no backup... they'd be insane not to tell their troops to temporarily ignore the enemy army and murder the PC instead, killing one of the ruling council of an enemy kingdom would be a huge blow. Also bear in mind that he could have used the exact same principles himself, send in a single very tough enemy with class levels to murder your entire city back home, after all using the mass battle rules it would win...

About our DM: I don't know if we were supposed to have a chance to take the Barbarian army but it didn't seem like he had cobbled that part together. What he said made sense, the barbarians followed the strongest and their strongest was challenged and beaten.

About the opposing army spotting a PC and directing his entire army at one person: I agree that it would be a priority item but getting an entire army to target a single unit doesn't seem plausible. How many soldiers are going to be able to see what they are shooting at? The first 2 or 3 rows maybe? And in melee more than 8 on 1 isn't going to work.

About 1 man armies attacking our cities: I wouldn't have complained about it. I would've reminded him that each of our 4 cites has a sizable defense modifier from walls, garrisons, and castles (all but Varnhold has a castle).
Although that makes me wonder, were the trolls/wyverns supposed to be outside the city?

*Edit spelling


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Technically, it is possible to mangle full-scale armies with one person. As your GM, I would have said "No", just as I did with my players when the possibility came up...it breaks any reasonable immersion in the game.

As a side note, we've found the abstract combat system from Kingmaker (and Ultimate Campaigns) to be unsatisfying. For our next mass combat, we will be using a slightly modified version of the rules presented in Warpath (a product I highly recommend, and the only 3rd party product that's ever passed muster with our group). We've tried it before, and find that it gives more weight to the individual commanders' abilities, making for a more engaging battle.


Wyrmholez wrote:
Orthos wrote:

And any general who doesn't get his/her surviving troops away from that wall ASAP is an idiot and deserves the beating s/he gets.

And even then, after that spell is cast, it's one guy versus a whole lot of arrows or incoming spells.

I'd be willing to bet that the smoke generated by 260 feet of burning corpses would grant a fairly substantial miss chance vs an eclipse of arrows.

Good thing with that many arrows I wouldn't bother rolling and would just treat it as a big ol' AoE.

Really, it just comes down to translating things from the basic system to the Mass Combat system just really doesn't work, unless you're more lenient than the majority of GMs are okay with, and that the Mass Combat system itself is unfortunately subpar. The Troop template seems to work much better IMO, for bringing armies and individual PCs onto the same level; otherwise the two are too different to properly jump between one and the other. Too much gets handwaved in the name of convenience for Mass Combat to put a PC on that level.

Dark Archive

Wyrmholez wrote:


About our DM: I don't know if we were supposed to have a chance to take the Barbarian army but it didn't seem like he had cobbled that part together. What he said made sense, the barbarians followed the strongest and their strongest was challenged and beaten.

He is, of course, free to run it however he prefers, but raging, angry, bloodlust filled barbarians stopping to kneel and change allegiance mid battle just seems a little... off to me personally.

Quote:
About the opposing army spotting a PC and directing his entire army at one person: I agree that it would be a priority item but getting an entire army to target a single unit doesn't seem plausible. How many soldiers are going to be able to see what they are shooting at? The first 2 or 3 rows maybe? And in melee more than 8 on 1 isn't going to work.

With armies of 100-200 it's pretty easy, troops, espeically archers tend to spread out a little and 2 lines of 50 men or so would be more than capable of seeing and shooting a single man. Versus mages there's also the distance factor, archers can start firing at 1000 feet or so away, that's a lot of volleys to endure before you get in spell casting range (of course invisibility etc can help, but thats more spells used and they can be countered just as easily).

Quote:
About 1 man armies attacking our cities: I wouldn't have complained about it. I would've reminded him that each of our 4 cites has a sizable defense modifier from walls, garrisons, and castles (all but Varnhold has a castle).

Again though, say a Wizard or Sorcerer of equivalent level teleports into your city, ignoring walls and such, then starts spamming walls of fire, fireballs, burning orbs etc. Your entire city is pretty much dead in *rounds*, well before you can do anything realistically. Players as armies just opens the door to so many problems that it stretches credulity to breaking point.

That said, if you and your GM are all enjoying it and happy with it then fine, but given your initial post it seems there are definitely some problems, consider trying a few battles without PC armies and play the generals who meet the enemy commanders in the midst of battle, you might enjoy it more :)

Grand Lodge

Orthos wrote:


Really, it just comes down to translating things from the basic system to the Mass Combat system just really doesn't work

This I agree with whole heartedly. I don't know anybody that wants to roll out an entire mass combat round 1 attack at a time.

OSuthainn wrote:


With armies of 100-200 it's pretty easy, troops, espeically archers tend to spread out a little and 2 lines of 50 men or so would be more than capable of seeing and shooting a single man. Versus mages there's also the distance factor, archers can start firing at 1000 feet or so away, that's a lot of volleys to endure before you get in spell casting range (of course invisibility etc can help, but thats more spells used and they can be countered just as easily).

The Perception DC to see someone 1000 feet away is 100. I can't make that DC and I don't suppose the rank and file soldier even gets a 15 when taking 10. That's 150 feet before someone spots you and that's for someone just walking up to the army. Imagine someone actually trying to be sneaky.

I think the morale of the story here is.
Realistic Mass Combat: Paizo Bad. Simplified Mass Combat: Paizo Good.


Chuckbab wrote:

*sigh*

The correct way to manage this kind of combat (PCs vs armies) would have been to allow the PC to hit with each attack ONE creature of the hundreds that composed Pitaxian armies... and then having each Pitaxian enemy make an attack against your PCs (that is, hundreds of d20 rolls, knowing that 1 on 20 would be a natural 20 and hit).

This fallacy never ceases to amuse me.

Tell me, how all those Pitaxians are going to target PCs, who are:

(a)Invisible and flying (because that's a standard procedure when dealing with hordes of schmucks, and very easily achievable at two-digit levels, heck, I forgot when was the last time my entire party didn't have overland flight means by level 7-8).

(b)Raining area attacks and summons on them from above (after eliminating commanders in the first sudden strike).

I'm not even getting any deep into high-level tricks. This is the standard for dealing with mook armies. And even elite Pitaxian mooks, as statted in the same adventure, have precisely zero ways to counter it. Armies of melee brutes and mundane archers do not work as an actual threat in DnD, once you are about level 9. The only conceivably dangerous element of Pitaxian forces is their flight of wyverns. It at least can ravage the countryside, instread of being bombed into oblivion on the way, possibly even threaten PCs, depending on how good they are.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Kingmaker / We took Pitax with 3 "1 PC" Armies & a 200 man Fighter 2 army All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Kingmaker