Kingmaker+Battlecry!

[fae angst]

Has anyone seen or done a conversion to do Kingmaker's army stuff using Battlecry! rules?

[moosher12]

I was musing similar, but I've only probed the basics, and not actually made rules yet. Though I had plans to do it on a second go-around of Kingmaker, and would love to see advice. That said, with my running Kingmaker, here are the things I noticed.

The big road blocks to keep in mind are that you'd need to custom tailor completely new encounters from Kingmaker's army system.

Troops don't have as hard a leveling system, as they are built a bit more like creatures, so one would need to create a custom table for keeping track of troop stats. But on a level, troops seem to be modeled as a permutation of the GM Core's creature creation rules, so practicing that would be a start, from there you'd have to standardize what abilities you want. For Kingmaker, you'd probably want to bring this system to at least level 17 for this, but depending on how much your party does random battles and explores, you can extend up to level 20.

Battlecry!'s troop rules don't accomodate Kingmaker's integration of equipping your army with special things like limited-use potions, magic weapons, or magic armor. So you'd need to figure an upgrade system within the Kingdom building rules. Recruitment should work fine, I think, but figuring what bonuses can be granted a troop will take some playtesting.

Then there's figuring out siege engine integration... Whether an army of siege engines is needed to get that many siege engines available, or whether you should instead mod one of your troops to being a siege engine instead. If the latter, you'd probably have to modify the cost of siege engine troops to be cheaper kingdom building side.

As for army allocations, I'd probably recommend letting one army equal troop unit per PC, though, as an army is thematically feeling bigger than a troop in its scope. Enemy armies would likely gain similar growth. Though playtesting would need to be done to figure what the right amount of armies is, especially for variable-size armies.

The most unfortunate thing is that all army combats would have to be swapped for troop combats in this event, and I lack experience with troop combat, you probably would too. You could let the findings of your early level troop combats help you scale for the late level ones. Encouraging some testing random battle troop activities might be a way to get information to better gauge what you can get away with, if your players are down with that.

I'd recommend running some simulation gamaes to see how troop combat works. One aspect I considered is using Valerie as a tool if your players recruit her. She fancies herself a knight, and would not be unlikely to take interest in things like Strategy games. Asking her to request your general to play a tabletop war game with her to hone their skills, or if she is your general, to help fine tune her plans, would be a way you can simulate troop combat without risking player resources. The best part is you can set parameters under- or overestimating rival factions to represent their assumptions of their abilities. (Amusingly enough, according to Grand Bazaar, there even is a strategy game called "Kingmaker"

[Tridus]

No, but when I saw the rules I decided I definitely would if it ever came up.

I think in general "1 army = 1 troop" makes sense. If you bring multiple armies into an area each PC can command a troop and they can be of different types, based on the kind of army. So you could have 2 infantry troops, a skirmisher troop, and a kobold troop for example.

You'll have to invent the stats and such yourself and create battlefields, but for ones you want to actually run combat for this will be a lot of fun because the PCs get to actually be in the thick of it with their soldiers instead of rolling totally unrelated kingdom skills.

(For battles you don't want to run, just let the PCs roll Warfare Lore or some other relevant skill and resolve it narratively.)

[moosher12]

Swapping an single army for a single troop is an option, but for the sake of kingdom economy, I'd recommend making the cost of a troop at most 1/4th the cost of an army if you do. An army is much grander scale than a troop.

Which is why in my original suggestion I wanted to place 4-6 troops per army, dependent on how many characters you have to make a troop, to better represent the cost of the army using Resource Points rather than money.

[Allyx]

I'm also trying to figure out a good way of merging the Kingmaker and Battlecry! mass combat systems.

Basically I plan to use the Battlcecry! Skirmish Warfare system for the most part but make the Kingmaker Army's HP equal to the number of Skirmish Troops in the Army, new stat blocks for the Kingmaker units will need to be made for the base level of each troop type, but usung online tools you can just increase the level of those Troop Units to adjust the stats of the Troop Unit as the Kingdom levels up, and Army Training abilities can be added to the stat block as the Kingdom invests into the Army's training.

So a Kingmaker Army with 4 HP would comprise of 4 Skirmish Troop Units (each containing 16 Small or Medium sized creatures, or 4 Large creatures) who move together as a Battlecry! Skirmish Troop does, all damage to the Kingmaker Army unit is applied to a single Troop first, and any spillover damage then affects the next Troop then the next Troop ect... once all 4 Troops (1 Skirmish Troop) has been defeated, the Army's HP is reduced by 1 and if the Army Unit is at or below it's Break Threshold, a Morale Check will be required to see if the Army Unit Routs.

Kingmaker Army Tactics would apply to the Kingmaker Army Unit as normal - though obviously the benefits need to be adjusted to reflect Skirmish Troop stat blocks instead of Kingmaker Army units, Battlecry! Skirmish Bonds for Kingmaker Army Units would take the Army's current HP value times the normal amount of Downtime and other costs to complete.

Area of Effect Spells should apply damage to each Skirmish Troop in the Area of Effect, but all damage should be first applied to one Skirmish Troop until that Troop is defeacted, with spillover damage then applied to the next Skirmish Troop. EG. A Wizard or Army Unit of Wizards casts Fireball, the AoE affects 4 Skirmish Troops (16 Troops) in the Army Unit, Roll Damage and apply the Weakness to AoE's as normal, the Army Unit takes the resulting damage x 4 units, but applies all the damage the Army Unit takes to one Troop within the Army Unit first, then any extra damage is applied to the next Troop Unit, etc, etc...

I'm still working on the fine details - stat blocks for the Kingmaker Army units as Battlecry! Skirmish Troop units for example, Army Tactics, Army Equipment, Army Conditions will need to likewise be converted over to use the Battlecry! system but this is the bare bones of what I plan to do, I hope this helps others looking to apply a similar hybrid mass combat system to their games.

[The Raven Black]

This thread really should be in the PF2 Kingmaker AP forum where the topic has already been a bit discussed and where it will receive even more adequate answers as well as provide ideas to those wishing to do this in the future.

I flagged it so that mods can move it there.

[steelhead]

Allyx wrote:

I'm also trying to figure out a good way of merging the Kingmaker and Battlecry! mass combat systems.

There’s some great ideas here! I’m looking forward to seeing more conversations about adapting Battlecry.