(If you prefer to skip background fluff, skim down to the next section)
I run a weekly Kingmaker game.
For those unfamilliar with the module, it’s an epic, level 1-20 campaign originally published in 2010 for Pathfinder’s 1st edition. The basic premise is that the PCs are set a quest not only to take care of bandits in a frontier region, but to establish their own small kingdom there.
I grabbed the 2nd edition remaster in PDF and on my virtual tabletop of choice (Foundry VTT) in the summer of 2023, and since then, me and my players have been having an absolute blast. As we’re all newcomers to the game system—our primary expertise is, yes, D&D 5E, with a smattering of other TTRPGs from D&D 3.5 to PBTA—the campaign has gone remarkably well. My PCs have established their own kingdom and defended it against an engineered cultist plague, a greedy warlord, an ancient lich who called dibs on ruling the area four thousand years ago… the works. All good dungeon-crawling fun.
But now, as we’ve reached the beginning of the latest chapter of our campaign, I was about to plunge my players’ realm into its first, honest to goodness war.
War. War means armies, mass combat, mustering, the works. In D&D terms, it means going back to the earliest roots of the hobby. Now, I love Pathfinder adventure paths in general, I really do. But they tend to include extra “subsystems” bolted onto the core game that vary quite a bit in quality. For Kingmaker, they presented two: Kingdom Management (where players could level up their kingdom on its own dedicated sheet, and roll kingdom skill checks to resolve conflicts on a macro scale), and Mass Combat.
As a group, we ditched Kingdom Management almost immediately. Reading online, I found that the system, even in the decades-later 2nd edition remaster we were using, was considered, at best, poorly balanced and unfun. I was perfectly eager to present country-wide problems and conundrums in roleplay, anyway—that’s half the reason I wanted to run Kingmaker. And, after two years (off and on) of playing, I gather my players enjoy it too!
So that leaves Mass Combat. Here, the system is on a more solid footing; each army is represented by its own statblock, and combat is run similarly to combat in any D&D system—initiative, turns, actions, etc. But here’s the rub. My players had by this point long established their own projects for building up and maintaining a standing army, among other numerous public projects they’ve undertaken to establish their nation. Just using the default statblocks provided in the module wasn’t going to cut it—they wouldn’t represent anything near the consequences of my players’ choices. I’d instead have to homebrew our own army statblocks based on the choices players have made and the ideas they’ve presented me with. I’d have to learn the system at a deep enough level to balance these fully custom encounters… and the players would have to learn another (admittedly similar) combat system just to play.
On the other hand, simply relegating military action to loose-form roleplay didn’t appeal to me either. Was there a simpler solution for us? One that involved my players in the dirt and sludge of fantasy military action without requiring a ton of prep work on my end—nor on their own?
I have no doubt the Mass Combat system would work, in the end. But in planning this chapter of Kingmaker, I searched for that better way. I involved my table in this, too—this homebrew isn’t coming directly from me, as two of my players in particular suggested core aspects of this system; and I stole adapted a good deal of the first part from another (5e D&D) game DMed by one of my Kingmaker players.
The following is what we, as a table, came up with.
Squadron Combat
The following has been written particularly with Pathfinder 2e in mind, particularly the encounter-building math. GMs using other systems will need to substitute the basics of encounter building in their own system of choice.
In squadron combat, players will choose to play small groups of NPCs or Monsters which represent small squadrons in their army—anywhere from two to eight statblocks each. Every player commands one squad, and each squad is balanced in combat power.
Before building a squadron combat encounter, the GM will set the encounter’s level rating. From that relative level, each side will construct their total squads according to an equivalent XP budget. The following table is adapted from Pathfinder 2nd edition’s encounter-building table:
(In Pathfinder 2e, it’s pretty important that each member of a squad should be within two levels of the level rating, due to its linear level scaling of attack, damage, and defenses. I simply don’t believe it’s fun for a level 5 soldier to have a mere 25% chance, at best, of hitting a level 10 foe. This restriction can be relaxed a bit more in 5e games, as bounded accuracy ensures that even lower-level statblocks stand a high chance of doing some damage to higher level foes).
As an example, let me consider our first squadron combat of our Kingmaker campaign: The Battle of Tatzlford. I set the level rating at 8, and gave each of my five players 160xp each to work with in building their squads. This gave me a total of 800xp to build the opposing force.
I as a DM did a lot of the heavy lifting in arranging, tweaking, and suggesting statblocks based on what my players said they wanted to run. My players decided on the following squads:
A squad of four level 8 statblocks forming a highly-mobile mounted “party” with two melee cavaliers, one healer, and one utility caster;
A squad of two level 10 scoundrel-types, including one “typical” hit-and-run rogue and one disguise expert / spy I agreed was already embedded within the advancing enemy force;
A squad of eight level 6 statblocks, forming a melee “front line” of relatively low-level infantry.
A squad with one level 10 artillery piece, along with two level 8 grenadiers.
A squad of four level 8 ranged combatants, including one ranger and three rifle-bearing “musketeers”.
Looking over the squads, there is a wide range of diversity in how much combat complexity each player can opt into (or out of). The player running the squad of lower-level infantry was given a very barebones statblock: each soldier had a relatively strong attack for their level and could raise their shield, allowing the player to form a simple but effective shield wall. On the other hand, the player with the mobile “miniature party” felt quite excited at the flexibility of running two full casters.
You’ll want to consider the mental load placed on each player by each statblock. Players who want to engage in simple “hold the line”-style tactics can absolutely complement teammates who prefer directing ranged or artillery fire, engaging in hit-and-run shenanigans, or using other highly-reactive tactics.
Of course, the major downside to this system thus far is how it would prolong a typical D&D combat session. A few things mitigated this.
Firstly, my players were invested from the start in implementing—and adapting on the fly—simple battle tactics to seize the upper hand. The Battle of Tatzlford, for instance, resulted in a crushing victory for the PCs since circumstances allowed them to set up a choke point they could hammer with ranged and artillery attacks. A later squadron combat, where their forces were caught decidedly off-guard, forced them to react on the fly and struggle against clearly unfair odds.
Secondly, a turn with an NPC statblock is much quicker than a turn with a full PC sheet, making player turns take longer than usual; though usually not by much.
Thirdly, we run Pathfinder 2e on a virtual tabletop, Foundry, where many fiddly aspects of the system are handled very quickly by the built-in system. I’m also very, very experienced running games in Foundry, so I have a good muscle memory built up; this allows me to adapt on the fly if needed.
Finally, I also implemented a simple Morale check system for enemy combatants, so not every battle would require full extermination.
Morale
This is not a system I constructed whole-cloth; rather, I liberally adopted this from similar mechanics in AD&D and OSR systems (in combination with the fantastic dis/advantage mechanic from 5e D&D).
I use morale as a GM-only mechanic. I encourage my players to roleplay out a loss of morale among the squads they control, and consider a fighting retreat depending on the developing circumstances of the combat.
In preparing a session of squadron combat, the GM will determine how many independent factions make up the opposing force. For many combats this will simply be one; however, some forces might be composed of soldiers from different allied factions with diverse military traditions and/or differing political investment in the battle’s outcome, and would thus have varying levels of morale between them. In the Battle for Tatzlford, for instance, I fielded soldiers conscripted by a local feudal Baron alongside berserkers from an allied nomadic tribe. I tracked the morale of both factions separately.
Each faction is assigned a Morale score between 2 and 12 by the GM, though most mortal factions will have a score between 4 and 9. This score represents how easily that faction’s morale would break during battle, causing its members to flee. A score of 2 represents untested or cowardly troops, or those almost totally uninvested in the battle’s outcome. A score of 12 represents combatants so hardened that they will fight to the last breath—this score is typically reserved for undead and similarly mindless enemy thralls.
At the following three points in the battle, morale will be checked:
First Blood; that is, when one member of the faction takes damage for the first time. Roll 2d6 twice and compare the lower result against the morale score.
First Loss; the first time a member of the faction is killed. Roll 2d6 and compare the result against the morale score.
Decimation; when half or more of that faction has been killed. Roll 2d6 twice and compare the higher result against their morale score.
If the result exceeds the faction’s morale score, that faction will seek to retreat from the field of battle. If the result is higher than the morale score by 4 or more, that retreat may be done in a disorganized panic, and may also result in a higher than typical amount of desertion from that faction’s troops in the weeks following.
I also allow bonuses or penalties between +2 and -2 to be applied to each morale score depending on the circumstances of the battle at that moment (and the nature of the combatants). In the Battle of Tatzlford, for instance, the player controlling a spy engineered some friendly fire between squads, which I judged lowered the morale score of the Baron’s soldiers from 7 to 6. (The nomadic berserkers, of course, couldn’t care less, so their morale score was unaffected). This morale reduction directly led to the Baron’s soldiers’ morale breaking shortly afterward when I checked their morale at First Loss. I rolled a 7.
I’ve also assigned monstrous enemies a higher value when calculating decimation; for instance, the nomads brought a battle mammoth with them to the Battle of Tatzlford, and I considered it worth two barbarian combatants when determining the point at which that faction faced decimation.
Do note that even the most untested troops with a Morale of 2 have an infinitesimally slight chance of fighting to the death—rolling a 2 on 2d6 four times in a row throughout the fight. Combatants with a morale of 12, however, will never retreat save for extraordinary circumstances, as judged by the GM. (In most D&D and like systems, undead already flee when failing a saving throw against Turn Undead, of course).
Conclusion
Overall, these squadron combat rules have served us quite well! One early pain point involved the tracking of initiative; each squad moves on the same initiative, so I made a snap decision to let each player roll initiative based on a representative member of their squad chosen by them. (I specifically encouraged each player to pick the member with the highest bonus). For myself, I roll initiative differently depending on the battle; in the Battle of Tatzlford, there were three types of enemies—infantry, crossbowmen, and berserkers—so I gave each type their own initiative. For a later battle, I built four identical squads ambushing the players’ forces, so each enemy squad received their own initiative roll. My principle was to give each player one single initiative roll for their squad, and then track enemy initiative in a way that works best case-by-case.
And I would also encourage GMs to consider “breaking” encounter balance if the story warrants it! Are the PCs bringing an overwhelming force to ambush a lightly-defended enemy position? Give them a larger encounter budget and let them dominate the field. On the other hand, are you carefully planning an ambush against your players? Get mean, throw in some extra monster nasties, and let the PCs know their enemies are fighting to win.
Especially in evenly-matched fights, however, I’ve found that sound tactics make a major difference. The Battle for Tatzlford was evenly matched on an XP level, but you wouldn’t know it from how solidly my players trounced the opposing force, without losing a single allied solider. I judged this to be an entirely reasonable outcome, actually. The Baron’s soldiers expected to come upon an unsuspecting, relatively unguarded village, but a defector reached the PCs twelve hours before the conquering army was set to arrive. This let the PCs turn the ambush perfectly around—and they were canny enough to rapidly seize a position where they could dictate the terms of engagement.
Squadron Combat takes advantage of how easy it is to run NPC and Monster statblocks in D&D/alike TTRPGs. This ease can vary quite a bit system-to-system, of course, and these rules likely won’t function well with players still struggling with the nuances of a given table’s chosen system. On the other hand, this does not introduce anything radially new into a game players and GMs are already familiar with, aside from a simple mechanic of Morale checks resolved behind the GM screen. It takes advantage of existing encounter-building tools to balance combat between relatively large numbers of NPC / Monster statblocks.
In sum, this system reasonably modeled the strategic consequences established in our table’s shared fictional world—in addition to being satisfying and fun. That’s an unbridled success in my book.
I suppose this speaks to how well the wargaming roots of D&D/alike game systems have been preserved. Even fifty years and five official editions after its first publication, D&D is still a pretty solid, pretty fun wargame.
And that’s all for now. Looking forward, I’ll be returning to my novel rewriting project next week. Also, I wrote another 3,000 words for the Bone and Spirit story I published on Halloween. Currently it seems the story will take another ~2,000 words to wrap up, but I’ll at least get part 2 posted next week, too.
(If you prefer to skip background fluff, skim down to the next section)
I run a weekly Kingmaker game.
For those unfamilliar with the module, it’s an epic, level 1-20 campaign originally published in 2010 for Pathfinder’s 1st edition. The basic premise is that the PCs are set a quest not only to take care of bandits in a frontier region, but to establish their own small kingdom there.
I grabbed the 2nd edition remaster in PDF and on my virtual tabletop of choice (Foundry VTT) in the summer of 2023, and since then, me and my players have been having an absolute blast. As we’re all newcomers to the game system—our primary expertise is, yes, D&D 5E, with a smattering of other TTRPGs from D&D 3.5 to PBTA—the campaign has gone remarkably well. My PCs have established their own kingdom and defended it against an engineered cultist plague, a greedy warlord, an ancient lich who called dibs on ruling the area four thousand years ago… the works. All good dungeon-crawling fun.
But now, as we’ve reached the beginning of the latest chapter of our campaign, I was about to plunge my players’ realm into its first, honest to goodness war.
War. War means armies, mass combat, mustering, the works. In D&D terms, it means going back to the earliest roots of the hobby. Now, I love Pathfinder adventure paths in general, I really do. But they tend to include extra “subsystems” bolted onto the core game that vary quite a bit in quality. For Kingmaker, they presented two: Kingdom Management (where players could level up their kingdom on its own dedicated sheet, and roll kingdom skill checks to resolve conflicts on a macro scale), and Mass Combat.
As a group, we ditched Kingdom Management almost immediately. Reading online, I found that the system, even in the decades-later 2nd edition remaster we were using, was considered, at best, poorly balanced and unfun. I was perfectly eager to present country-wide problems and conundrums in roleplay, anyway—that’s half the reason I wanted to run Kingmaker. And, after two years (off and on) of playing, I gather my players enjoy it too!
So that leaves Mass Combat. Here, the system is on a more solid footing; each army is represented by its own statblock, and combat is run similarly to combat in any D&D system—initiative, turns, actions, etc. But here’s the rub. My players had by this point long established their own projects for building up and maintaining a standing army, among other numerous public projects they’ve undertaken to establish their nation. Just using the default statblocks provided in the module wasn’t going to cut it—they wouldn’t represent anything near the consequences of my players’ choices. I’d instead have to homebrew our own army statblocks based on the choices players have made and the ideas they’ve presented me with. I’d have to learn the system at a deep enough level to balance these fully custom encounters… and the players would have to learn another (admittedly similar) combat system just to play.
On the other hand, simply relegating military action to loose-form roleplay didn’t appeal to me either. Was there a simpler solution for us? One that involved my players in the dirt and sludge of fantasy military action without requiring a ton of prep work on my end—nor on their own?
I have no doubt the Mass Combat system would work, in the end. But in planning this chapter of Kingmaker, I searched for that better way. I involved my table in this, too—this homebrew isn’t coming directly from me, as two of my players in particular suggested core aspects of this system; and I
stoleadapted a good deal of the first part from another (5e D&D) game DMed by one of my Kingmaker players.The following is what we, as a table, came up with.
Squadron Combat
The following has been written particularly with Pathfinder 2e in mind, particularly the encounter-building math. GMs using other systems will need to substitute the basics of encounter building in their own system of choice.
In squadron combat, players will choose to play small groups of NPCs or Monsters which represent small squadrons in their army—anywhere from two to eight statblocks each. Every player commands one squad, and each squad is balanced in combat power.
Before building a squadron combat encounter, the GM will set the encounter’s level rating. From that relative level, each side will construct their total squads according to an equivalent XP budget. The following table is adapted from Pathfinder 2nd edition’s encounter-building table:
(In Pathfinder 2e, it’s pretty important that each member of a squad should be within two levels of the level rating, due to its linear level scaling of attack, damage, and defenses. I simply don’t believe it’s fun for a level 5 soldier to have a mere 25% chance, at best, of hitting a level 10 foe. This restriction can be relaxed a bit more in 5e games, as bounded accuracy ensures that even lower-level statblocks stand a high chance of doing some damage to higher level foes).
As an example, let me consider our first squadron combat of our Kingmaker campaign: The Battle of Tatzlford. I set the level rating at 8, and gave each of my five players 160xp each to work with in building their squads. This gave me a total of 800xp to build the opposing force.
I as a DM did a lot of the heavy lifting in arranging, tweaking, and suggesting statblocks based on what my players said they wanted to run. My players decided on the following squads:
Looking over the squads, there is a wide range of diversity in how much combat complexity each player can opt into (or out of). The player running the squad of lower-level infantry was given a very barebones statblock: each soldier had a relatively strong attack for their level and could raise their shield, allowing the player to form a simple but effective shield wall. On the other hand, the player with the mobile “miniature party” felt quite excited at the flexibility of running two full casters.
You’ll want to consider the mental load placed on each player by each statblock. Players who want to engage in simple “hold the line”-style tactics can absolutely complement teammates who prefer directing ranged or artillery fire, engaging in hit-and-run shenanigans, or using other highly-reactive tactics.
Of course, the major downside to this system thus far is how it would prolong a typical D&D combat session. A few things mitigated this.
Firstly, my players were invested from the start in implementing—and adapting on the fly—simple battle tactics to seize the upper hand. The Battle of Tatzlford, for instance, resulted in a crushing victory for the PCs since circumstances allowed them to set up a choke point they could hammer with ranged and artillery attacks. A later squadron combat, where their forces were caught decidedly off-guard, forced them to react on the fly and struggle against clearly unfair odds.
Secondly, a turn with an NPC statblock is much quicker than a turn with a full PC sheet, making player turns take longer than usual; though usually not by much.
Thirdly, we run Pathfinder 2e on a virtual tabletop, Foundry, where many fiddly aspects of the system are handled very quickly by the built-in system. I’m also very, very experienced running games in Foundry, so I have a good muscle memory built up; this allows me to adapt on the fly if needed.
Finally, I also implemented a simple Morale check system for enemy combatants, so not every battle would require full extermination.
Morale
This is not a system I constructed whole-cloth; rather, I liberally adopted this from similar mechanics in AD&D and OSR systems (in combination with the fantastic dis/advantage mechanic from 5e D&D).
I use morale as a GM-only mechanic. I encourage my players to roleplay out a loss of morale among the squads they control, and consider a fighting retreat depending on the developing circumstances of the combat.
In preparing a session of squadron combat, the GM will determine how many independent factions make up the opposing force. For many combats this will simply be one; however, some forces might be composed of soldiers from different allied factions with diverse military traditions and/or differing political investment in the battle’s outcome, and would thus have varying levels of morale between them. In the Battle for Tatzlford, for instance, I fielded soldiers conscripted by a local feudal Baron alongside berserkers from an allied nomadic tribe. I tracked the morale of both factions separately.
Each faction is assigned a Morale score between 2 and 12 by the GM, though most mortal factions will have a score between 4 and 9. This score represents how easily that faction’s morale would break during battle, causing its members to flee. A score of 2 represents untested or cowardly troops, or those almost totally uninvested in the battle’s outcome. A score of 12 represents combatants so hardened that they will fight to the last breath—this score is typically reserved for undead and similarly mindless enemy thralls.
At the following three points in the battle, morale will be checked:
If the result exceeds the faction’s morale score, that faction will seek to retreat from the field of battle. If the result is higher than the morale score by 4 or more, that retreat may be done in a disorganized panic, and may also result in a higher than typical amount of desertion from that faction’s troops in the weeks following.
I also allow bonuses or penalties between +2 and -2 to be applied to each morale score depending on the circumstances of the battle at that moment (and the nature of the combatants). In the Battle of Tatzlford, for instance, the player controlling a spy engineered some friendly fire between squads, which I judged lowered the morale score of the Baron’s soldiers from 7 to 6. (The nomadic berserkers, of course, couldn’t care less, so their morale score was unaffected). This morale reduction directly led to the Baron’s soldiers’ morale breaking shortly afterward when I checked their morale at First Loss. I rolled a 7.
I’ve also assigned monstrous enemies a higher value when calculating decimation; for instance, the nomads brought a battle mammoth with them to the Battle of Tatzlford, and I considered it worth two barbarian combatants when determining the point at which that faction faced decimation.
Do note that even the most untested troops with a Morale of 2 have an infinitesimally slight chance of fighting to the death—rolling a 2 on 2d6 four times in a row throughout the fight. Combatants with a morale of 12, however, will never retreat save for extraordinary circumstances, as judged by the GM. (In most D&D and like systems, undead already flee when failing a saving throw against Turn Undead, of course).
Conclusion
Overall, these squadron combat rules have served us quite well! One early pain point involved the tracking of initiative; each squad moves on the same initiative, so I made a snap decision to let each player roll initiative based on a representative member of their squad chosen by them. (I specifically encouraged each player to pick the member with the highest bonus). For myself, I roll initiative differently depending on the battle; in the Battle of Tatzlford, there were three types of enemies—infantry, crossbowmen, and berserkers—so I gave each type their own initiative. For a later battle, I built four identical squads ambushing the players’ forces, so each enemy squad received their own initiative roll. My principle was to give each player one single initiative roll for their squad, and then track enemy initiative in a way that works best case-by-case.
And I would also encourage GMs to consider “breaking” encounter balance if the story warrants it! Are the PCs bringing an overwhelming force to ambush a lightly-defended enemy position? Give them a larger encounter budget and let them dominate the field. On the other hand, are you carefully planning an ambush against your players? Get mean, throw in some extra monster nasties, and let the PCs know their enemies are fighting to win.
Especially in evenly-matched fights, however, I’ve found that sound tactics make a major difference. The Battle for Tatzlford was evenly matched on an XP level, but you wouldn’t know it from how solidly my players trounced the opposing force, without losing a single allied solider. I judged this to be an entirely reasonable outcome, actually. The Baron’s soldiers expected to come upon an unsuspecting, relatively unguarded village, but a defector reached the PCs twelve hours before the conquering army was set to arrive. This let the PCs turn the ambush perfectly around—and they were canny enough to rapidly seize a position where they could dictate the terms of engagement.
Squadron Combat takes advantage of how easy it is to run NPC and Monster statblocks in D&D/alike TTRPGs. This ease can vary quite a bit system-to-system, of course, and these rules likely won’t function well with players still struggling with the nuances of a given table’s chosen system. On the other hand, this does not introduce anything radially new into a game players and GMs are already familiar with, aside from a simple mechanic of Morale checks resolved behind the GM screen. It takes advantage of existing encounter-building tools to balance combat between relatively large numbers of NPC / Monster statblocks.
In sum, this system reasonably modeled the strategic consequences established in our table’s shared fictional world—in addition to being satisfying and fun. That’s an unbridled success in my book.
I suppose this speaks to how well the wargaming roots of D&D/alike game systems have been preserved. Even fifty years and five official editions after its first publication, D&D is still a pretty solid, pretty fun wargame.
And that’s all for now. Looking forward, I’ll be returning to my novel rewriting project next week. Also, I wrote another 3,000 words for the Bone and Spirit story I published on Halloween. Currently it seems the story will take another ~2,000 words to wrap up, but I’ll at least get part 2 posted next week, too.
As always, thanks for reading!