Some AP's such as Kingmaker use the rules for running a kingdom. WotR uses the Mythic rules. Are there any other special rules used for this, or are the mythic rules the only ones I would need to worry about?
I don't really care for the mass combat rules so that will almost definitely be cut out if I run it.
I don't really care for the mass combat rules so that will almost definitely be cut out if I run it.
I haven't gotten there yet, but I've been told part of book 3 includes some city(kingdom) building elements.
My group was really good at the army rules when I ran kingmaker. They(my old group) made it ridiculously easy. What I will probably do is give the PC's missions, and depending on how well they do they will receive so many points, and that will determine if their army can win or not.
As others have said mass combat makes an appearance, and downtime rules are alluded to. I would also suggest dropping mass combat rules, but definitely keeping the army as an RP backdrop.
My PCs had fun with the city/guild building for about two sessions and that was it. The city also isn't overly important either, or the specifics aren't.
You also need to brush up on your planar knowledge and how beings and spells operate on other planes.
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The main intent of the downtime system here (besides tying in a product) is presumably to get your PCs invested in Drezen. If you don't think your PCs will need the system to drive their attachment to the city, you probably don't need it. If you think they'll like it, though, go for it. :)
Part two has lots of mass combat since the pc's are supposed to be leading an army to take back Drezen, but this can easily be handwaved and have victory be determined by the PC's efforts as you suggested. I myself took the middle road and made a subsystem to the mass combat in which the pc's could earn victory points to get bonuses and rerolls in the mass combat phase and glory which gave them permanent bonuses with that army as long as they commanded it. I also used the expanded mass combat rules from Legendary games Ultimate battle book.
In part 3 the pc's can help rebuild Drezen by using the downtime rules from ultimate Campaign, but I didn't feel that building businesses was very heroic or epic so I switched to the Kingdom building rules from ultimate Campaign (which are much better than how they originally appeared in Kingmaker) and my players are having a blast with it.
The Mass Combat system wasn't terrible for my group. In fact the player in charge of the army had a lot of fun with it. I could see some groups getting horribly bored during this session, but the entirety of mass combat took up a total of maybe 30 minutes spread out over 4 sessions.
If you have someone you think might have fun with it, go for it. Otherwise as others have said, it isn't important in the least.
True, mass combat doesn't take up much time. Its more because the AP assumes the army survives and offers no suggestions on what to do without an army. Which is odd, as a full attacking dretch army can potentially one shot the PC's army if my memory is right.
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Argh! now i gotta make a mythic zap branigan that sends army after army of paladins at the worldwound:-)
a cavalier, order of the cockatrice of course:-)
My group really enjoyed the mass combat part. If you "check all the boxes," if you will, the fights are pretty easy. They only risked losing the army in the final siege of the citadel, but still came out in the end.
We completely skipped all the Downtime stuff, mostly because I didn't think my players would have the time or inclination to learn a whole new subset of rules that we never use after 2 or 3 sessions. It also helps to keep them from turning into magic item factories.
You will use Hex exploration in most of book 3, that was also short circuited for my group b/c our wizard discovered Mythic phantom steed. It helped to avoid too many random encounters but it really shortened the exploration phase, since they were travelling at 120ft instead of 30 (or 20).
True, mass combat doesn't take up much time. Its more because the AP assumes the army survives and offers no suggestions on what to do without an army. Which is odd, as a full attacking dretch army can potentially one shot the PC's army if my memory is right.
I didn't check how my player built the army as I wasn't too concerned but he had ranks in profession solider and was able to take some extra boons that made their army practically invincible. I think he was using Lay on Hands every turn so any damage was instantly healed.
As for what happens if the mass combats aren't dealt with. I think it says to double or triple the number of enemies inside of the Citadel, but I could be making that up.
Also, if the army loses I don't think the players are automatically dead. I'm pretty sure the army is routed and lost, but the commanders (read PCs) are assumed to survive. I'd think they'd be able to skip past the Vescavors entirely, and then there is no reason to deal with the Bridge, Haunted Vault, or siege towers. So it isn't game over if the army loses.
The army is already built for the PCs... unless you divided it up so more PCs got to do something(a good idea from the boards). At this level a PC could only teach the army one extra boon if the skill was pretty much maxxed out.
I'm mostly saying the risk/reward or fun/ no fun for including mass combat isn't there. The PCs won't die but there's extra plotting to be done if/when the PCs are surrounded by 5 armies in Drezen.
The army is already built for the PCs... unless you divided it up so more PCs got to do something(a good idea from the boards). At this level a PC could only teach the army one extra boon if the skill was pretty much maxxed out.
I'm mostly saying the risk/reward or fun/ no fun for including mass combat isn't there. The PCs won't die but there's extra plotting to be done if/when the PCs are surrounded by 5 armies in Drezen.
Yeah, I don't really recall how it was done. I think he got two boons, but I'm not sure how (and he might have only been supposed to get one).
My PCs face rolled over the first several mass combats because they brought every conceivable NPC with them. Huge bonuses all around. It was only in Drezen that they started getting any real opposition. They are about to attack the citadel after having killed the other armies/skirmishes, save for the group of 3 armies.
I'm going to add ranged weapons to at least one of the armies, have the dretch fight recklessly, etc. I have 6 PCs so upping the challenge is needed, though most are not optimized. The chimera scared them a lot. I like the idea of the mass combat rules, but my implementation of them was clunky(rusty gm/new rules subset).
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I actually enjoyed using the Mass Combat rules and my players caught on fairly quickly to the rules. It's a nice change of pace and they can help you spread out the siege timewise in game. I wrote up a blog on how to use it to pace the time and including the weather from the Worldwound campaign setting book.
Mass combat in WotR
--Vrock and Awe!