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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Battlecry! / Skirmish Units / Building Skirmish Encounters

Special Considerations

Source Battlecry! pg. 166
The advice in this section addresses certain issues that might arise when planning or running skirmish warfare.

Lone Wolf PCs

Source Battlecry! pg. 166
So, you have a PC in your group who doesn’t play well with others. They might not be at all interested in leading a group because of their character’s personality or abilities. Usually, your best course of action as GM is to reduce the number of troops the PCs can command by one when building your encounter, which adjusts the XP budget accordingly.

If you find that all or most of your group feels the same way, skirmish encounters are probably a bad fit for your campaign or adventure. You might look at ways to turn warfare into background or set dressing rather than making it an active part of combat that needs to be played out using these rules.

One Tough Enemy

Source Battlecry! pg. 167
You can add troops to the PCs’ side of a combat against a big monster to even the odds and turn what would be an extreme encounter into a moderate encounter. It’s still extremely challenging to go above party level + 4 for an adversary. For such an encounter, giving every PC a troop will likely make the encounter too easy, so it’s usually better to start with the intended enemy and add troops until you have your desired encounter budget balance. For example, you could add a boss of party level + 4, worth 160 XP, and add 80 XP worth of troops to the PCs’ side to make it effectively a moderate encounter. Note that if you have an enemy who can frequently dish out effects that deal damage in an area, the troops will likely be less effective because the enemy can easily exploit their weaknesses.