Book of the River Nations: Mass Combat presents rules for the character's nation to rise against another nation with a simple and fun system. Perfect for players in any Pathfinder game that uses mass combat rules and an ideal reference for game masters to have a handy reference. With errata incorporated and frequently asked questions clarified, this book is the goto reference for mass combat. Now everyone at your table can have the rules to valiantly lead their kobold army (or whatever race) into battle.
Book of the River Nations: Mass Combat also features new tactics, requirements to produce certain types of units, rules for training time, the incorporation of the Leadership feat into mass combat and more.
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For a GM running the Kingmaker Adventure Path, this offering represents a significant improvement over the presentation in AP#35. The Jon Brazer version does cover the same material presented in AP#35, however the examples actually show all of the features in their description blocks, some of which are omitted in the AP version. There are far more sample armies, for your convenience, and the naming conventions for them make more sense.
This is important when you are trying to explain the system to a table full of gamers that may be completely baffled by this concept. Additional tactical modifications & capabilities are a help as well. I like the army build chart, too. Nice to have convenient tools for the task at hand!
For further details, if you haven't already done so, please read the Dark Mistress' review.
Book of the River Nations: Mass Combat by Jon Brazar Enterprises
This product is 12 pages long. It starts with a cover. (1 pages)
Armies (4 ½ pages)
Next it jumps right into army stat blocks with a paragraph introduction. It deals with the armies stats, build cost, consumption(to keep the army going) special tactics it can learn, special abilities the army might posses. Final it closes with training armies and vassal armies.
Running Mass Combat (2 pages)
This section is how to actual run a combat between two armies.
Sample Armies ( 2 ½ pages)
This section has 20 sample armies with stat blocks to use for them.
It ends with a army stat block sheet and a OGL. (2 pages)
Closing Thoughts. This is mostly a reprint of the mass combat rules from War of the River Kings adventure from the Kingmaker AP. I looked at the two of them, there is roughly 5 pages of stuff in the AP. This book minus OGL, sheet, cover and art. Has roughly 8 pages. Which is a couple of pages of extra stuff. I didn't notice any obvious errors and the art is fair black and white art. The layout is clean and very print friendly. This is a tough one to rate. While most of the information is reprinted and slightly reworded, some of it is new. If you have the AP with the information this gives you a print friendly way to print out just that information and it has a little extra. For those people it is likely a 1-3 rating depending on how important it is to have a print friendly copy. For those that don't have that AP then this would be all new stuff and a lot more useful, in which case I would likely give it a 3-3.5 rating.
So in short if you don't have the AP in question and you want some simple quick mass combat rules this is worth picking up, then I would give it a 3.5. If you do have that AP and would like a little extra and a print friendly version then it is still worth two bucks but not as good of a bargain then, then I would rate it a 3. If you have the AP and have no use for printing it out, then likely this is a product for you, in which case it is a 2. Most of the extra information is sample armies but not all of it.
I will be purchasing this with my bulk order in january to get my discount. It comes at a perfect time as my home game is currently heading into mass army combat while the characters do individual combats and hopefully is as good as the other products from paizo. I will post as soon as i get to read it over and from myself and all the Limited Grey Matter Gamers Group have a very Merry Christmas everyone.
Don't suppose there's any tidbits about riverine combat? I'm thinking small scale navies.
Yes, small boats are covered as a recourse for armies and DV/OM modifiers.
Having said that, they're not super detailed. Its not like, ship A grants X bonus while ship B grants Y bonus and so on. Its just a quick add on to an army's existing stats.
Yes, small boats are covered as a recourse for armies and DV/OM modifiers.
Having said that, they're not super detailed. Its not like, ship A grants X bonus while ship B grants Y bonus and so on. Its just a quick add on to an army's existing stats.
That'll do. To be frank, I often expect something of the sort to be completely overlooked, so having some consideration in the ruleset is a good jumping off point for me. I've already popped this in the old cart and will review if I get the chance.
With Book of the River Nations: Feats, Spells and Secret Societies due out later this month, I'll be updating Book of the River Nations: Mass Combat to reflect a few changes made to these rules, stating exactly how Mass Combat feats and spells work here.
I don't understand why the spellcasting sample armies have such low leveled spells. The Healer's Brigard consists of level 5 adepts, they should be able to cast Cure Moderate Wounds. And the level 5 wizards of the Arcane Army should be able to cast Summon Army III instead of Summon Army II.
Is that an error?
