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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 6059331" data-attributes="member: 3586">We tested out the Kingmaker Mass Combat rules in our last session, as the War Got Real. And, not surprisingly, I found them extremely lacking.There is a fundamental disconnect between the narrative needs of a RPG and the details required by a wargame (and, by extension, a good kingdom-building system). Kingmaker grafts on the army system to the rest of the kingdom-building system, and it doesn't integrate well. In particular, a system that has been working on a monthly system suddenly becomes a weekly system. It creates a system where you can build armies of unbelievable strength given enough time and resources - and resources haven't exactly been in short supply in the game.It's actually possible to use the system-as-written to create an army of 20th level wizards. Just spend a year training them or thereabouts.Given how horribly broken the training and upkeep of armies is, at least once they're on the field, it gets better. What, it doesn't? Who'd have guessed? The combat rules are basic but they work (sort of) for combat, but as to the other effects of armies - pillaging, looting, and taking over the land of other kingdoms - is ignored. Do you think that unrest might grow if there's an enemy army stomping around your territory? I do, but the Paizo staff don't. There's a lovely wargame (and relatively simple) called <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/234/hannibal-rome-vs-carthage" target="_blank">Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage</a>, which manages to incorporate a political dimension into a wargame - and, not unlike Kingmaker - Hannibal really has a very small number of armies on the map. The board squares have three states: controlled by Rome, controlled by Carthage and uncontrolled. Winning battles causes the loser to lose a number of squares (becoming uncontrolled) depending on the size of the loss, and armies (along with spending of resources) allow conversion of territory from one side to the other. (Other games, like <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38996/washingtons-war" target="_blank">Washington's War</a> use a similar system).However, Kingmaker runs into a real conflict of purpose: it wants an easy system that doesn't conflict with the role-playing, instead complementing it. However, it first has a rather fiddly economic system, and then squibs on the actual conflict resolution system. As a system that you might consider using in another campaign: forget it. As a system just for the Kingmaker adventure path, it doesn't really work either. Colour me disappointed.So, we spent about 2 hours of the session playing around with the army building rules (which are badly written, confusing and contradictory) as the armies of Pitax annexed Fort Drelev (which the group hadn't quite yet gotten into their kingdom). Great hand-waving on my part, (how long does it take Drelev to be annexed? I decided about a month) and then the armies of Pitax marched on their next stop: Tatzlford.In the meantime, the players summoned a couple of armies from their 'vassal' kingdoms: the centaurs and the cyclopes. The latter came from some good role-playing a few adventures back, and it felt right to reward the players now for their good play back then. They also set up a couple of smaller "kingdom" armies, and then sat behind a half-completed wall to let the siege of Tatzlford commence!Seeing the small size of the forces involved - I think only about 1000 troops on both sides of the battle - was a bit of a shock. Especially as one of my favourite game series is the Great Battles of History (GMT Games) where troop sizes are a lot higher. (Agincourt was about 10,000 men a side, Granicus was about 25,000 Greeks vs 50,000 Macedonians). The accepted numbers for a siege are 3:1 odds, but the Pitax army was more deadly than the opposing forces... if defenses weren't taken into account. So, although my player's forces took some damage, in the end it was a loss for the attackers and the utter destruction of their invading armies. From there, the players marched on Fort Drelev and retook it from the garrison force that had been left there - a lot of barbarians! It's actually likely that they wouldn't have been able to take the Fort, as the defense bonus was just so strong, but I made a house rule to deal with critical hits - as the actual text manages to squib this. (Critical misses are horrible, Critical hits do nothing). And the players rolled three 20s, routing the barbarian defenders. The players finally annexed Fort Drelev, and began plans to invade Pitax.In the end, they just walked in the front door (using a seeming spell), and made their way up to the palace, planning to bring their full might against King Irovetti. Greater Invisibility got them in a side door, but it was guarded and the group made very, very poor Stealth checks - the guards noticed Greg's paladin clanking away, and the doors mysteriously opening. Two porticulli came down, trapping the group, and we ended the session.The next session will hopefully run better - although I'm not particularly impressed by the palace design. Some interesting plotting has been lost under a badly designed and poorly developed set of rules.</blockquote>

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