d20 compatible wargames in your campaigns

[guileus]

I recently read the Warpath wargaming rules (http://www.adamantentertainment.com/2010/04/16/warpath-mass-combat-rules-for-pathfinder/) and I really liked that I could have a wargame that is based on d20 rules, so I could implement it with my D&D campaign and not have to change systems if I want PCs to intervene in the battle. I also like that it's similar enough to the d20 combat rules so that people can get a hang of it fast.

It seems there is not much support for it as it was released a good 6 years ago, so I was curious if anyone here has played it. I'm planning on using it on my homebrew/customized Kingmaker campaign.

I actually posted a question in one of the threads at Paizo but it seems dead, so in case anyone here plays it and has some input:


The way they are listed, maneuvers are a bit confusing:

Is "moving" considered a maneuver (marching forward, as the march maneuver, which doesn't require discipline test)? Basically: what are the differences between moving and the "marching" battlefield maneuver?

When charging, I assume that you only get to do one attack, right? What about a troll, who has three natural attacks, bite and 2 claws? Does he only get a single attack when charging (chossing which weapon)? Also, as a unit of trolls has no armor, I assume they need no discipline check for any march maneuver, right?

When wheeling (in order to pivot to better face an enemy), how are then squares counted for movement, if you wheel only 45 degrees (and thus you are facing "diagonal" movement every time you advance)? Does it count as all of your movement being diagonal (and thus counting double every two squares)?

Do criticals need a natural 20 (or 19-20 depending on weapons), or if for example you need a 19 to score a critical but you're flanking you could score a critical when rolling a 17 or higher?

How do units with no leader or commander rally or recover from routing? For example a unit of savage trolls.

As you can see, I'm really planning on my PCs facing trolls :P


Also, expanding on charging:

I assume that charging is a march maneuver, so you could execute it and melee attack (as you are limited to move and attack OR maneuver and attack), but the attack is NOT included in the maneuver (so you could not charge-attack and then attack again) right?

[guileus]

How about any players that have tried merging a wargame with D&D? It doesn't matter which game, it would be interesting to hear about any system.

[BowStreetRunner]

I honestly cannot think of a time when I played with anyone who was interested in merging these together in D&D. Large-scale warfare was just 'Plot'.

The only game I can think of where we merged large-scale warfare with role-playing was BattleTech/Mechwarrior. I've played in battles with well over 100 mecha and then role-played a scenario in the same game where my mechwarrior was sneaking around a tech company suspected of possessing secret designs to improved weapons systems.

That was a long time ago, but it seemed to mesh pretty well.

[guileus]

I actually wanted to house rule the Warpath handbook to change some of the stuff I don't like and give it a try in my campaign. The idea of my players leading an army against marauding trolls that want to destroy their capital city sounds cool, I'll play some Medieval 2: Total War soundtrack over them moving the unit cards in the battlefield and saying stuff like "Archers! Aim... release!" or stuff like that.

I want to change things like the discipline/morale rolls. I don't like them being done with a d20 because the spread is too wide so modifiers don't add excitement to the game. I was thinking of making it a roll with 3d6 that had to beat 10. So you have a pretty good chance of beating it with infantry (if they are trained soldiers, let's say they get a +1 bonus). But then, when a unit is down to 75% they get a -1 penalty. 50%, make it -2. 25%, -3. So, because of the odds involved in 3d6 rolls, the danger of not beating 10 grows exponentially, which I think adds excitement and reflects the higher probability of units routing when they start suffering heavy losses.

Of course CHAR modifiers can affect units, which make commanders (and hence, the role of the players) much more valuable and interesting on the battlefield. What do you guys think?

[guileus]

(I'll model it for next game: just spent an hour writing up NPC enemies for the game tomorrow and I promised myself I would not spend this much time, so I wouldn't get burnt out when players can't make it to the game, don't seem so involved etc.).

[Uncle Pine]

I've read the "Fields of Blood: the Book of War" 3rd party supplement and although I didn't end up ever running a game with it the system looked very well thought with the various mechanics sliding in place without grossly confusing concepts or exceptions that I could spot.

[guileus]

Thanks for the suggestion.
I've been looking it up and it sounds very cool. I think playwise it might be faster than Warpath because of the less math involved (units have "sounds" instead of "unit hp" as in warpath). It does require more time preparing the units though.

Two things that kind of bug me are:
1) units only come in sizes of one hundred creatures. You can join units to create cohorts or legions but you can't scale down to have an even match between 15 trolls and 100 men at arms. It looks like if a unit of trolls and one of men clash, men will be killed as they are weaker and similar numbers are assumed.

2) it looks unreasonably difficult for some units to wound others. The example units they give at page 61 have infantry with power 6 and toughness 17 and elite cavalry with power 17 and toughness 25.

To wound you're supposed to roll a d20 and add the power to beat your opponents toughness. That would mean infantry could only wound on a 19+ roll (assuming they hit, AC, weirdly, are similar for both units, although attack bonuses are higher for cavalry of course).

As you only have any impact on the enemy by wounding him (there are no hp, remember), it is very very unlikely that any number of infantry units get to have any effect on cavalry: they would get wounded or even killed each round they fight against a cavalry.
Of course I understand that elite cavalry are Superior to regular infantry. My point is that it is very unlikely for a big number of infantry units to even slowly grind cavalry down, even taking several units as casualty. Only with a very lucky roll they would wound them (and you would need two to kill them off).

Anyone experienced with fields of blood knows if I'm doing anything wrong here or can share some input?

I'm also thinking about looking Cry Havoc up, any opinions on it?

[zlefin]

how well do these warpath rules work in practice compared to PF's mass combat rules?

[guileus]

how well do these warpath rules work in practice compared to PF's mass combat rules?


PF mass combat is more abstract, kind of you design "armies" and then make them fight against each other by choosing some strategies and rolling dice. It's cool and way faster, but it doesn't really zoom in into the battle. Of course you may design an encounter to make your PC's feel like they are "in" the battle (for example, while the battle rages on, you make them fight against individual leaders of the enemy army, or raid its supply line etc.), but it's more abstract because the battle itself gets decided at the above level where you're rolling dice between armies.

Warpath and Fields of Blood have got fast resolution rules for battles like PF, but they also have a sort of "wargame", a la Battlesystem, where you do control units on the battlefield, they fight each other, PCs can have stats and lead units etc. (I have to check out Cry Havoc to see if it's like that too). It's cool because you can convert D&D or PF creatures into units and so actually fight the battle as if you were playing Kings of war or Warhammer, if that's your thing. I wanted to get that sort of experience for exceptional, important battles, and use the fast mass combat resolution rules for the minor ones.

[HouseRules]

I prefer the Epic in Epic Poetry. All minor details matter, so let us fight using the standard D&D rules without any abstraction.

Year 2002 "Chainmail Core Rulebook" is different from its ancestor "Chainmail: Rules for Medieval Miniatures". This is a version specifically for d20. It abstracts every hit dice to represents 10 Character Level. Those Character Levels could come from a single creature or multiple creature, but pretty much still an abstraction.

Remember that Morale does not work with Player Characters because Players do not want to lose Agency of their Characters.