In my current campaign the heroes have saved the Princess from her treacherous younger brother who claimed the throne by falsly accusing her of cultist worship and killing the few stupid enough to openly disagree with him. They fled the country, where they are wanted criminals now for aiding a cultist. They have visited 2 countries and roleplayed out ways to get two small forces (100 soldiers each). So far so good.
But they will need more, a lot more! I figure the King has gathered a battalion in his home city (1000 troops), all well armed, well supplied with the best equipment and defensive entrenchments. To fight that, they'll need at least that many, so they'll have to gather support.
Any ideas for creative ways for them to do this?
Ah... you have come to the right place. Necromancy has all of the answers to your dilemmas.
Are you using the Inner Sea campaign setting? If so, which country are you trying to reclaim, and from which countries have you acquired the 200 soldiers that you do have?
Can I suggest instead of fighting the enemy on fair ground, that you instead use guerrilla tactics?
Guerrilla tactics excel against larger less mobile military forces. If the players are sufficiently high level it is unlikely that the kingdom could muster enough magical resistance to protect all targets effectively.
Scrying can allow for the reconnaissance of high value target individuals allowing for assassination. Other divination magic can allow for recon on areas without risk to individuals. After finding an unguarded target you can teleport in, destroy, and teleport out. By targetting high value targets you can distablizie the whole government.
Why fight them head on and waste resources and lives when you can just use guerrilla tactics to get rid of the occupying force?
Assassinate their leadership under the cloak of darkness.
Spread dissent through their ranks.
That 1000 will quickly fall...
Well all the traditional means of raising an army.
1. Spend the money and hire mercenary units.
2. Religion - have a high ranking priest/pontiff ask for a crusade.
3. Propaganda, plant false evidence, expose a confession, lie.
Otherwise I agree with Claxon, its not best for PCs to lead military forces in a PF game, rather to perform as special operations commandos, which are what most PC parties consist of compared to the majority. Using a standard adventure party performing guerilla tactics - blow up bridges, harrass supply lines, assassinate commanders, etc. is the best way for PCs to defeat any army.
There are many ways to raise an army :
- defeat a powerful monster like a dragon and use its treasure o recruit mercenaries
- become the leader of some kind of monster tribe and use them to fight for you
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Might I suggest the Mass Combat rules from Ultimate Campaign? Not only does it have a variety of rules for raising an army, but also on what it takes to maintain and utilize one (or several for that matter).
1) have the rogue sneak into the enemy compound.
2) poison food supply.
3) ???
4) Profit.
Alternatively, organize a political marriage between the princess and a powerful nation that can give you their army to help reclaim the kingdom, which they can then claim because, well, the last blood heir is now part of their royal family, thus giving them the strongest claim to the throne.
Historically a common way for someone like this to raise an army is to appeal to other rulers. For their own reasons and usually to their own benefit as well they would champion the deposed and use their military force to put them back on the throne, or at least provide some aid to that effect.
I would expect most Guerilla tactics to be fairly poor choices in this situation. The current ruler apparently has popular support and isn't an invader, so you are going to be killing your countrymen who are just doing their job, probably increasing the view that you are an evil cultist. A decapitation strike might be effective, but general guerrilla tactics probably wouldn't be.