An Idea: A Book About War

[The Last Baron]

There's something I'd like to see for Pathfinder, and that's some really good mass combat rules. The rules that are already available are alright, but I'd like to see something more detailed. There's already Cry Havoc and Heroes of Battle for 3.5 as well as Warpath for Pathfinder, but I'd like to see something made by Paizo. The other books don't live up to their full potential in my opinion. But they give a good picture of the level of detail I'm looking for. I basically want a wargame you can play in conjunction with Pathfinder; Warhammer without the miniatures. I'd like to see things like terrain, maneuver, supply, morale, all that stuff covered. As well, there should be rules for the effects of the individual PCs' actions on the battle. Something similar to what was done in Heroes of Battle. We could even have some Base Classes or Prestige Classes with a war theme.

There's a lot more that can be done with this. Include rules and advice for gaming out things like sieges, marches and the like. There could also be some rules and advice for handling politics and diplomacy. There's a lot that can be done with this idea. It can be called something like Ultimate Battles or Advanced Battles Guide or something like that. Paizo could even produce products to be used in conjunction with the book. Perhaps a Flip-Mat with a hex grid on it to play out your battles. Ideally you could buy several of them and put them together for a really big battlefield. Or put out some Campaign Setting releases about running wars in Golarion. Include stats for the armies of the various nations, and things like that.

Does anybody else think this is a good idea?

[LearnTheRules]

I've been wanting something like this for ages. What I don't like about the Kingmaker mass-combat is how different mundane weapons and armor aren't taken into account, and just a lack of detail overall. I was thinking how to make a system where you didn't need to have 100 of a creature before you had a decent sized unit. I came up with this system which I think might work for smaller battles, zombies attacking a small town etc....

You use the stat blocks of a regular monster or npc, adding its hp for every ten of said creatures/npcs in the unit and allowing one attack per ten in the unit.

For example, let's assume you have a unit made up of 30 lvl 2 warriors with average hp and con 12. One such warrior would have 13hp
{(5.5 x 2)+(1 x 2)}. The unit would therefore have 39 hp. Assuming that they are armed with longswords the unit rolls 3 attacks so long as it is above 26 hp, at which point it rolls 2 attacks, and so on. AC is as the normal creature, as are all other relevant stats.

Still working on creating and expanding such rules but I think this is a good start. Hope it helps ;-)

[evening]

Check out Green Ronin's - "The Black Company Campaign Setting" (based on the books by Glen Cook)

It has rules for individual, company-scale and army-scale combat.

Command feats that let a character order units to perform special maneuvers and improve the unit's fighting ability.

Terrain, morale, magic, training, etc.

Most of the rules you are looking for (might) be in this book.

[The Dark]

The old TSR Birthright setting had basic rules that would be fairly easy to use. This system bunches characters/creatures into groups of 20.

The total number of HD are the group's HP (i.e. 20 level 3 fighters have 60 HP).
AC is the average AC for the group
Base Damage is equal to BAB (the level 3 fighters would deal 3 damage as their base)
Double base damage if the creatures/characters have more than 1 attack/round
Double base damage if the maximum damage by an attacker in a single attack exceeds 12
These are cumulative - a group with multiple attacks and the ability to deal more than 12 damage deal quadruple damage.
Final damage dealt is 20 + modified base damage - opponent's AC (minimum 1). (The original system used THAC0 - this formula converts from THAC0 and the low-AC system to BAB and the high-AC system)

For example, if those level 3 fighters were attacking AC 15 opponents, their final damage would be (20 + 3 - 15) = 8. Against AC 24 opponents, it would be (20 + 3 - 24) = -1, which would default to the minimum of 1.

Roll a die (original used 1d8, I prefer 1d10 to make things a little quicker) for each side and compare results
The winning side adds the difference to their damage, the losing side subtracts the difference from their damage
If multiple groups attack one group, add their die rolls together before comparing

Bonuses/penalties to the die roll:
+1 per 2 levels of magic cast to benefit the group (either buffing the group or harming their opponent)
+1 for a group led by a PC or unique NPC
+2 for the first round of an ambush or other surprise attack
+1 for terrain advantage (sahuagin in water, treants in forests, etc)

When a group's HP are halved in combat, halve their damage (rounding up) and reduce their die by one type (i.e. d8 to d6 or d10 to d8). At 1/4 HP, reduce the die type again.

In general, half of HP losses are deaths; the other half are recoverable wounds.

I would consider adding some additional rules as well, based on situation - for example, if one side has ranged weapons and the other doesn't, and it's not an ambush situation, the side with ranged weapons should get at least one free attack with the ranged weapons before being engaged in melee (roll as usual, but ignore casualties for the ranged unit).

[Sir Cirdan]

Aye, I'd like to see this too.

Most of all, I'd like to see a mechanism for determining a mass melee in just a few rolls. Or for mass reflex saves vs. a fireball. Or handling Arrow volleys vs. large group of targets.

It'd be kind of nice to see a new kind of feat called formation feats that allow a group of creatures with the same feat to act as one creature for the purposes of attacking and being targeted. For example, 18 soldiers could form together as one huge creature, with 6 attacks per round as per the base soldiers, an ac of the base soldiers, etc. It would have hitpoint=avg hp soldier*#of soldiers/2. When those hp are depleted, the unit breaks up into 9 individual soldiers at full hp (assuming all were at full when the formation formed) taking up the same space as the huge creature, but in a looser formation. I'm just pulling this idea out of my rear, so it's just a thought...based around the idea of the mob templates I saw in 3rd edition.