Mass combat

[Ocule]

So was thinking about mass combat in pathfinder the other day and was thinking about which way was the best way to do it. We are running wrath of the righteous right now second mod implemented it i don't expect to see it again beyond this one it did get me thinking about mass combat with pathfinder. There are a couple options that i can think of like ultimate campaign mass combat rules, heroes of battle, warhammer, warpath or a custom system so here are my thoughts.

First option, would be ultimate campaign mass combat definitely deserves a mention here since it is paizo published. And on a rundown maybe it plays differently but i do like how it keeps everything abstract so it doesnt take a lot of time out of the game allows for quickly resolving battles to get back to roleplaying on a micro scale once again. Unfortunately it feels wanting in a lot of areas that it seems like and a bit unwieldy for something that will take up so little time at the actual table. It is set up for armies as a whole, but doesnt take into account the smaller units that make up the army that would vary, such as archers, infantry cavalry and spellcasting but are based off of a single until multiplied 100x or by some other factor and it is suggested to run diverse armies as multiple armies. Perhaps if it took into account army composition or at least army diversity. Like adding an archery component to it adds 100 units and gives the ranged attack ability or increases the ranged attack from say javelins to bows. Adding a contingent of spellcasters would give that army spellcasting ability. Keeping the same rules but allowing variation within each army. Anyway just my take, i could be wrong i havnt tried it out yet.

Warhammer was mentionable here, kind of duct tape and string way to do it but to just use an actual wargame to simulate your mass combats, but it would require your players having access to and learning wargaming rules not everyone might be down for that.

Warpath- I dont know saw it in the paizo store as a 3rd party product dont really know much beyond that it was a more complicated take on armies and kingdom building id love to know more about it before considering buying it.

I was considering putting together my own system using mechanics already in pathfinder but on a larger scale drawing inspiration from total war and kingdom under fire and doing something along the lines of, changing the scaling on the battlemap and each miniature represents a unit composed of X amounts of soldiers, keeping relatively the same mechanics as are normally found in pathfinder only with special stat blocks geared towards a group of people instead. Spellcasters would function as support or artillery and there would be no 5' adjust only a disengage maneuver that is difficult to pull off. This would allow for a more realistic representation of commanding a battlefield and some rather unique units like a single powerful caster with a squad of bodyguards or magical beasts. Wouldnt be much more complicated that controlling a bunch of summoned creatures. I kind of want to create this system and see what it turns out like i have most of the rules in my head for it.

Finally there is heroes of battle's approach to it which they might actually be right. Their approach was we are playing an rpg, not a wargame. Wars are dull and take a lot of time so rather than commanding an army have them take part in a battle doing commando style missions as opposed to controlling massive amounts of troops. Have the battle occuring around them and plenty of baddies to kill maybe take out some siege engines or disrupt supply lines. As they said, Think big but play small.

So id like to hear some feedback about experiences dealing with mass combat/warfare at the gametable, what do you guys think is the best approach to handling large battles.

[aaron Ellis]

Ocule said wrote:

what do you guys think is the best approach to handling large battles?

Short answer? Hero Lab with all the add-ons.

Longer answer? I kind of hated the mass combat rules when I was playing Kingmaker a couple of years ago. Now that our group is playing Wrath of the Righteous, I actually look forward to it. I'm even sad that the battles will taper off after this book.

So, what changed? Why the change of heart?

The mass combat rules were added to Hero Lab with the Ultimate Campaign add-on. Creating diverse "armies" is quick and painless. Managing multiple armies at the game table is easy. Just one click is all it takes to switch between armies.

True story. Last session, our gunmage got his fly spell dispelled out from under him by some [REDACTED] in book two of our Wrath game. He floated gently down into the middle of an army of [REDACTED]. He didn't have any spells left to get away, so my master summoner started spamming Lantern Archons to help out.

Seeing this, the GM wondered out loud if I could summon enough archons to field an army. Since my summoner can bring in 12-36 of the little guys in about a minute, I suspected it was doable.

Between turns, I fiddled around with Hero Lab and created a tiny army made of eleven LA units. It had one hit point, excellent DV, ranged attacks only, tactical advantage, etc. And it only took a couple of minutes to stat up.

While we didn't get to use the archon army in that session, I now have it ready to go for future battles.

[redcelt32]

Our group is playing Kingmaker and even though we are only thru book 3, I have thrown five separate mass combats against them. We did:

- two armies fighting across an open field (UC style)
- fighting an entrenched army holding a key bridge (battlesystem style)
- siege of a castle (party on the outside) (Battlesystem style)
- ship to ship battles (RPG style)
- siege of a walled town (party on the inside) (RPG style)

We tried the Kingmaker/UC mass combat rules for our first skirmish, and it worked okay but it was so quick and clinical that it lost a lot of the intensity you expect to feel when winning/losing mass combat. I only recommend this if method if you have very large armies spread out across multiple battlefields in a large scale kingdom vs kingdom type major war. Everyone in our group was disenchanted with this style very quickly, but it is quick and effective.

I have not tried Warpath, but I did use a set of rules someone made where they took old Battlesystem rules and updated them for Pathfinder. This worked better than UC style, as army units acted like large creatures that took HPs of damage and dished it back. It was just like wargaming, so if you like that, this might be a good choice for your group. Half of my group was okay with it, and the other half (RPGers) hated it.

We finally stuck to the option that is more work intensive for the GM, and more theatrical and chaotic, but our group seemed to like it overall the best. We had them assign a warleader or two to each mass combat group, which may or may not be a PC. Then the players get to move about the battlefield and engage more directly with the individual units of the armies. In other words, your 10th level fighter is wading into a big combat with say 200 men around him.

The easist way I found to adjudicate this sort of thing is have the direct result of the PCs efforts in a microcosm battle translate into a larger scale effect. In other words, if that fighter and the NPCs immediately around him start soundly defeating their opponents, then his larger unit is winning their portion of the overall mass combat. This lets the party directly deal with the most vicious/powerful forces of the enemy, much like the Fellowship did during the Battle of Pelennor Fields in the movie.

It does require the GM to give regular updates to the party on how different groups are faring in combat, something that usually works best if at least a couple PCs stay out of the immediate heat of battle, like druids, wizards, etc, flying above and overviewing. This is by far the most memorable, intense, and rewarding method, at least in our experience. It is far more subjective however, so the GM may want to write out some specific events and consequences in advance to make things easier when the story/battle is flowing and he or she is making decisions on the fly.

There is no other method of mass combat quite as epic as seeing the other general/king across the massed horde between you and carving or blasting your way to a major showdown.

[toascend]

While there is somewhat of a hiccup translating the mid level PCs fighting against small formations of troops, on a larger scale or with high level individual PCs (CR 10+), it works beautifully.

In the course of a 2 hour portion of a session with rich narrative, we had a battle between 35,000 orcs, 5,000 hobgoblins, and 3 ancient black dragons against about 14,000 human troops with a combination of shieldwalls, cavalry, archers, and lots of defensive walls. It played beautifully, and felt very smooth. With numbers that can represent even the grandest of historical battles, I was very very pleased with the flow of it...even when the dragons were scaring off entire regiments!