Pathfinder in the Classroom


Homebrew and House Rules


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm a teacher planning on using Pathfinder to re-enact the battles of Lexington and Concord in my middle school classroom. I've got minis, terrain, dice, and tweens ready to try to do better than the Redcoats did on the march back to Boston. What I don't have are stat blocks for Redcoats and Minutemen. I was wondering if any number-crunching genius out there had suggestions for stats, or suggestions for simplifications in the rules system so I don't have to roll initiative for 80 patriots.

Thanks!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

While I don't have anything to simplify things or help much I just want to say:

BEST. TEACHER. EVER.

I would have been so excited by such things if my teachers had done them, well done. And the math teacher down the hall will love you for making them work with numbers in a fun way. I swear half the reason I'm so good at math is RPGs.


Roll initiative for all the patriots in groups;it should be much easier.Just try to keep them loosely together.

Use muskets from Ultimate Combat,but you may want to switch up their stats a bit.Also,stat-wise:
11 Str,16 Dex,12 Con,10 Int,12 Wis,10 Cha.

I would say that perhaps the PCs should be Gunslinger 1,with an extra 2 points in Wisdom;the rest of the army should leave the above stats unmodified.

Both armies would probably be the same stat-wise,but the redcoats should be better equipped while the patriots might get a few more skills (like Stealth).Also,leaders should get a few more Cha.

What I would also recommend is having the losing side make morale checks periodically(Will-based).

Btw....

I WISH YOU TAUGHT MY HISTORY CLASS :D


Menelaus Marvell wrote:

I'm a teacher planning on using Pathfinder to re-enact the battles of Lexington and Concord in my middle school classroom. I've got minis, terrain, dice, and tweens ready to try to do better than the Redcoats did on the march back to Boston. What I don't have are stat blocks for Redcoats and Minutemen. I was wondering if any number-crunching genius out there had suggestions for stats, or suggestions for simplifications in the rules system so I don't have to roll initiative for 80 patriots.

Thanks!

Aaaaaaaaaaaw, that idea almost makes me wish I taught Middle School instead of Elementary :(.


The nerds/gamers in your class will love it.

You will lose everyone else if you don't core it down to the basics.

Gaming is fundamentally slow a lot of the time. It's critically important to speed up the process or you'll end up with half the class staring out the windows or looking at the clock.

It's a really cool idea, good luck and tell us how it goes.


Menelaus Marvell wrote:

I'm a teacher planning on using Pathfinder to re-enact the battles of Lexington and Concord in my middle school classroom. I've got minis, terrain, dice, and tweens ready to try to do better than the Redcoats did on the march back to Boston. What I don't have are stat blocks for Redcoats and Minutemen. I was wondering if any number-crunching genius out there had suggestions for stats, or suggestions for simplifications in the rules system so I don't have to roll initiative for 80 patriots.

Thanks!

Aaaaaaaaaaaw, that idea almost makes me wish I taught Middle School instead of Elementary :(.

Here's what I'd do.

1) Determine how many patriots and how many redcoats there are.

2) Divide the Redcoats and the Patrios up between the kids in your class. Try to have as close to an equal number of soldiers per student as possible. For example, if you have 60 patriots and 180 redcoats in a 30 kid classroom, then each kid is associated with 2 patriots and 3 redcoats.

3) Have each kid in the classroom roll initiative and write it on their own sheet. If you really want, you could get a whole bunch of dry-erase magnets and write the student's names on each magnet along with their number and place the order visually on the board. Maybe get a dry-erase arrow pointing at a kid's name so you know whose turn it is.

4) Have the kids use the month of their birthday as their Dexterity modifier when determining initiative. Same rules apply as in Pathfinder.

5) On each kid's turn, they can have their soldiers act with you, the teacher, controlling the soldiers associated with the kid. You could make a small chart-like thing next to the kid's initiative count to mark how many patriots that student has alive, as well as a count to how many red coats are associated with them.

6) For simplicity's sake, only allow the red coats to attack their associated kid. When all of a kid's patriots die, any remaining red coats are evenly dispersed between the kid one place higher and one place lower than them in initiative.

7) The kids, however, can attack whose ever soldiers they want. You could use place initiative as "range increments" so you don't need an actual grid (unless you want to use it?). For example, if Sally is 1, Jimmy is 2, Billy is 3, and Bob is 4, a musket has a 20-ft. range increment, so Bob can shoot his own enemies at no penalty, Jimmy or Billy's at a -2, or Sally's at a -4.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Menelaus Marvell wrote:

I'm a teacher planning on using Pathfinder to re-enact the battles of Lexington and Concord in my middle school classroom. I've got minis, terrain, dice, and tweens ready to try to do better than the Redcoats did on the march back to Boston. What I don't have are stat blocks for Redcoats and Minutemen. I was wondering if any number-crunching genius out there had suggestions for stats, or suggestions for simplifications in the rules system so I don't have to roll initiative for 80 patriots.

Thanks!

Uhhh.... yes... you might want to NOT use Pathfinder and use a wargaming system instead. It's a case of using the appropriate tool for the purpose. After all they're units on a battlefield.

But then, another thing that you should keep in mind is that the battles that were won and lost were more of a matter of tatics, terrain, and conditions both internal and external rather than dice rolling. If you have the figures for illustrative purposes, I'm not sure where dice rolling belongs in this scenario. After all if you have a bunch of oddball rolls you could find yourself reversing history!

You might want to watch one of the battle recreation programs from the History channel to get an idea on how to use figures and other aids like this.


Like lazarx I would strongly recommend you try a different system. Pathfinder is NOT built for this. There are lots of good historical wargamming systems out there, and I am certain there are some specifically designed to simulate American Revolution Era warfare. I would strongly suggest looking into this instead of trying to do it with pathfinder.


I'm lucky because I teach in a Montessori school where I have the flexibility to to this kind of thing. For example, I'll only have four students in the room at the time because with 25 kids it would be impossible.

Sphar, I'm going to use your stat suggestions. Also, I'm certainly going to simplify the system down, make sure the kids know all they can do is attack, move, and that's about it.

Any suggestions on different systems? I'm planning on running significant battles in my classroom throughout the years, so if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Thanks for all the ideas! I brought in minis and terrain today. The kids' eyes were wide as saucers. We're assembling Concord's North Bridge as I type. I'll let you know Monday how it goes.


You could try Savage Worlds. This is the system I use with my kids to reenact battles (we homeschool). It has a pretty simple mass combat system, as well as a way for individual characters to impact the final result. We recently ran the First Battle of Bull Run through this system. I simplified the battle greatly, creating just one massive army per side, and no individual characters other than the commanders. It was over in just a few minutes: the south won, but not for the same reasons they won in real life. We plan to go back and try it again, breaking it up into smaller units to try to better simulate the real-life deployment of forces.

We also ran the Battle of the Hornburg (Helm's Deep) this way, and it only took half an hour...and most of that was looking up the numbers on Wikipedia, creating the characters, etc. The defenders were totally exterminated by the end of the second day, by the way, before Gandalf and the Huorns could show up to open a second front. Saruman's forces took heavy losses.

Shadow Lodge

Does the Kingmaker AP contain rules for this sort of thing? I don't have it, but it seems like those would come in handy...

EDIT: Actually, the Jade Regent AP does have caravan rules. I wonder if those couldn't be adapted...


mcbobbo wrote:
Does the Kingmaker AP contain rules for this sort of thing? I don't have it, but it seems like those would come in handy...

Yep! The mass combat rules are in Pathfinder Adventure Path #35: War of the River Kings, starting on page 54.


Okay, here's the post-game report.

First off, every single kid was into this. From "cool kids" out to students who are differently abled, boys and girls, everybody enjoyed re-enacting the battles so much they usually requested the chance to play again as soon as they were finished. Interestingly, I'd say that girls were in general more into it than the boys were...

Secondly, it was fascinating seeing what luck and tactics could do with a lopsided encounter like the battle of Lexington. Most Patriot "commanders" in the re-enactment did exactly what happened at Lexington: namely, they fired at the British until they realized they were being cut to pieces and then wisely retreated. One girl (note the gender) in command of the minutemen decided she would not go gentle into that good night. She turned Lexington green red with the blood of the British. She fought to the death, and racked up tremendous casualties on both sides.

Thirdly, from an educational perspective, based on assessments after the battle, students were able to recall clear details about the battle and the forces arrayed at each one. Number of casualties, positioning of forces and its effect on the course of the battle and war, etc. I'm definitely doing this again, and more battles from later in American history. My principal is really into using games as teaching tools, and actually has the students CREATING their own video games about academic topics.

From a mechanics perspective, I really stripped things down. Students could do a bayonet charge, shoot a musket, reload, move and that was about it. Initiative was at first resolved using a deck of cards, then the kids switched to doing paper-scissors-stone of their own accord. I'm planning on increasing the rules difficulty as the years go on (I'll have some of these kids for two years...) and if Paizo gets a few extra orders of the beginner's boxed set this Christmas, well, it's just my way of giving back to the hobby.

Thanks so much for all the ideas and support. I will keep posting in this thread when I do another re-enactment.


Judy Bauer wrote:
mcbobbo wrote:
Does the Kingmaker AP contain rules for this sort of thing? I don't have it, but it seems like those would come in handy...
Yep! The mass combat rules are in Pathfinder Adventure Path #35: War of the River Kings, starting on page 54.

Judy, I now have another reason to go pick up Kingmaker! I'll locate the rules and try them out when I do the battle of Bunker Hill/Breed's Hill.

Also, Procrastinator, thanks for the heads up! I'll check that out.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Homebrew and House Rules / Pathfinder in the Classroom All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules