Path to Glory 3 House Rules

[Enoby]

I've been in a Path to Glory game for a while and though the group has enjoyed it a lot, there are a few little annoyances we've had. 

One of which is that heroes, especially the warlord, don't become much stronger - this is especially true in the case for the few subfactions that grant all heroes command traits off the bat. What that means is renown is almost always better given to units rather than heroes for their veteran abilities. Considering that a Path to Glory is usually about a Warlord's rise to power, it seems odd that the Warlord themselves rarely gets more powerful unless they change their model (which isn't always desired or possible). 

One of the houserules we're wanting to try is that heroes can gain those same veteran abilities every 15 renown after 15 up to three (so 30, 45, 60).

While I can see this getting very strong on some heroes (like Mawkrushas or Zombie Dragons), the abilities are once per battle and can already be given to very strong units like Goregruntas and Blood Knights. I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced otherwise? 

Are there any other house rules you've used to improve Path To Glory games?

[NinthMusketeer]

We had a house rule for no special characters once. But people had a lot of issues with the system, it feels unfinished you know? It felt like trying to do a narrative league and a matched escalation league and failing to do either very well.

Perhaps the most notable problem that we would house rule if doing nuPtG again (as opposed to RtR) would be something involving casualty rolls. The bias towards elite, tanky units was quite significant.

[Enoby]

11 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

We had a house rule for no special characters once. But people had a lot of issues with the system, it feels unfinished you know? It felt like trying to do a narrative league and a matched escalation league and failing to do either very well.

Yeah I definitely get this. It does feel as if they've tried to overbalance and this has left some areas feeling barebones - in all honesty, I'd love it if they released a full supplement book to add onto the current skeleton with more narrative rules. 

As you said, there are a few too many ways it feels like matched play, to the point where a 1000pt PtG game would feel identical to its matched play counterpart.  

While it wouldn't be an easy fix, I think one of the issues is that most territory is about removing restrictions, which isn't bad on its own but also isn't exciting. It means getting territory boils down to just being able to take more of 'X' rather than giving a benefit over a normal matched play army 

I do agree about casualty rolls. I've taken a horde army and it's become easier to just replace the entire unit rather than roll to recuperate (especially for the Warcry warbands), whereas the Soulblight player with lots of Bloodknights hasn't taken a single casualty. 

As for named characters, initially we had the same rule as you but a lot of people wanted to use certain models that only had a named character variant. The new rule is that we can have named characters, but they can't actually represent the named character.

[NinthMusketeer]

It's a great skeleton but I think their decision to make it matched-play compatible crippled the potential. I'd be willing to bet the overwhelming majority of PtG games happen against other PtG armies.

[OkayestDM]

A house rule that we've used is that your Warlord is an Anvil of Apotheosis character, and they can improve over time by earning more Anvil points. 

The rules aren't quite 3.0 compatible, but it's fun.

[Nuno M]

Ive heard from others' experiences that yes, trying to make an escalation league out of this, with specific points increases, tends to not work very well cuz thats built in already through its natural progression.
If the "escalation" is just the number of points players can field in army lists (which is always decided on a game per game basis anyway), then I think that works well.
Organizers also seem to have good engagement with allowing Glory to be earned if players post some hobby they've done or original writing.

 

I think just using the Tiers of Battle, and allowing people at several diff levels of PtG to play together without worrying too much, is better.
Its the veteran abilities that unfortunately escape the balancing of Tiers of Battle ... an organizer could put in place that for every X veteran abilities an army has more than the other, the underdog army can take a Ruse or something. Maybe each 2-3 Vet abilities.

 

Regarding the warlord, yeah, i'm glad they introduced the option to improve the model.
I'd like they also explicitly said that you *could* use the on-foot/non-upgraded version too, just for the flexibility of list-building. Thats also a houserule one could put in.

I think using Anvil of Apotheosis might be the better option for the warlord. It's just a matter of deciding whether they increase in Destiny points every game (as suggested in the Anvil rules, D3 each game), or some conversion factor from renown. Say, each 3 renown = 1 Destiny Point.

 

I do have to say that I appreciate the Matched Play compatibility. I cant convince enough people to do PtG anyway (for long enough), so if I can play a PtG game and build up my army's story for myself, without needing to ask anything else from my opponent, thats awesome.
If I want something more involved and more narratively rich, I have to try to see if someone runs a proper campaign or find narrative events to attend... Its hard enough to get people on board, unfortunately. So thats why I appreciate the middle ground: so at least *I* can enjoy it

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Nuno M

[Carnith]

A quest I wanted to implement was one that gave heroes the chance to learn Anvil of Apotheoisis abilities, up to 10 DP worth of upgrades. 

Quest was gained by the Hero performing actions, but it also increased the cost of your hero.

[NinthMusketeer]

Could even theme it off what upgrades they are getting--if they want a defensive stat boost they need to be subject to enemy offense (survival optional), if they want a boost to spellcasting they need to cast a bunch of spells, etc.