Updated Mass Combat Rules for Wrath of the Righteous

[Saraiso]

Hi Everyone,

I posted this over in the Homebrew section, but since Wrath of the Righteous is what started this whole project, I thought I'd post it here too.

I have been running the Wrath of the Righteous AP and the one thing that really left me lukewarm was the Mass Combat rules. It seemed like there was loads of configuration in the setup and building of an army (none of which you actually get to do in the campaign!), but during combat you just wind the two armies up (selecting tactics and strategy) then let them go at it and watch them roll attacks at each other till one falls down. Not very satisfying!

So, in an effort to improve the experience, I decided to make my own!

I have been looking at a lot of different homebrew and third party mass combat systems, including from the great 3pp book Ultimate Battle, but none of them were quite what I was looking for. The ruleset I came up with, and which is posted below, is a hybrid of ideas from many other sources as well as entirely original ideas I came up with on my own.

The key differences are that combat takes place in rounds, each of which has 4 phases (tactics, ranged, melee, rout) and that Tactics are an army's actions. Each round an army picks one tactic to use, and that determines which phase the army acts in.

There is also lots of other stuff... in an effort to make the system truly comprehensive I have included all of the army based things I could think of, including several that were left out of the Kingdom Building rules. There are rules for terrain, weather, visibility, more leadership boons, more leadership positions, mythic abilities, overland travel, recruiting/disbanding armies, upgrading/downgrading armies, and so much more!

If any of you feel so inclined (and want to read through the massive 73 page pdf), please give me feedback on this! I am playtesting these rules with the group I'm currently running through Wrath of the Righteous, but if anyone else wants to take these rules and playtest them yourselves feel free!

Campaign Spoiler:

So far book 2 has gone quite well using this system, and I plan to add more mass combat battles through book 3 (i am thinking 3 different armies attacking Drezen over the months the party spends exploring and downtime), and then also expanding on the army side of things for book 6. It never sat right with me that you do all this stuff with leading an army on the march to Drezen, then you just park them there and forget about them till the very end.

Plus, by facing some demon armies in the field the PC's will get to see just how terrifying the Teleportation special is, and they will appreciate the power of the Sword of Valor so much more when the demon armies besiege Drezen and loose their ability to teleport!

Just please give me credit if you distribute this to your friends, and don't distribute this pdf for any commercial purposes >_<

Saraiso's Mass Combat Rules

[tynansdtm]

Every AP seems to add new, poorly playtested rules, and the mass combat especially looked really bland. Looking forward to trying this out when my players get there.

[Here4daFreeSwag]

Good to have some free WotR mass combat stuff out there. ;)