Introduction
A PF2e war campaign is not an accounting exercise. It is a campaign where armies, factions, forts, supply lines, casualties, commanders, scouts, banners, and public morale change the adventure choices.
Use this guide with Battlecry, GM Core, skirmish warfare, troops and garrisons, siege weapons and battle vehicles, technology in campaigns, factions, and the PF2e guide hub.
Hot take: the party should not personally win the war by reducing every enemy soldier to 0 Hit Points. That is not a campaign. That is a very long line.
War Campaign Prep
| Prep item | What to write | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Fronts | The major forces, what they want, and what happens if nobody stops them | Gives the war motion between sessions. |
| Key locations | Forts, bridges, cities, supply roads, temples, monster lairs, and refugee routes | Turns the map into choices. |
| Commanders | Leaders with motives, weaknesses, loyalties, and bad ideas | Lets strategy become personal. |
| Civilian stakes | Who suffers, who profits, who resists, and who needs protection | Keeps the war from becoming scenery. |
| Player leverage | The specific missions the PCs can do better than an army | Protects the campaign from becoming a board-game summary. |
| Supply | Food, medicine, powder, mounts, repairs, spell components, and transport | Makes victories and failures persist. |
| Morale | What makes each side hold, break, bargain, or retaliate | Turns social play into war pressure. |
| Consequences | How victories and failures change the map | Makes the war feel real without simulating every soldier. |
Write this in one page. If the prep document needs its own quartermaster, it is already too big.
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Use GM Core Procedures First
Battlecry gives the war layer, but GM Core gives the procedures that stop the campaign from becoming vague narration.
| GM Core tool | War use |
|---|---|
| Encounter budgets | Build patrols, raids, skirmishes, monster attacks, and fort fights fairly. |
| Adjusting encounters | Scale elite units, weak patrols, reinforcements, and depleted enemies. |
| Skill DCs | Set scouting, logistics, command, sabotage, engineering, and diplomacy numbers. |
| Subsystems | Track infiltration, research, influence, reputation, chases, supply, and multi-step missions. |
| Hazards | Represent trenches, burning buildings, collapsing walls, cursed battlefields, traps, and artillery zones. |
| Treasure by level | Keep PCs funded even when rewards are access, supply, favors, or battlefield gear. |
| Hero Points | Reward costly courage, civilian rescue, clever retreats, and character-defining command choices. |
| Environment | Make weather, mud, smoke, difficult terrain, night marches, and ruined cities matter. |
The trick is not to abandon normal PF2e. The trick is to make ordinary PF2e scenes matter to the war.
Battlecry Layer
| Battlecry-facing element | How to use it |
|---|---|
| Skirmishes | Use set-piece fights for decisive moments: gate breaches, ambushes, rescues, and counterattacks. |
| Troops and garrisons | Represent organized bodies without rolling for every individual. |
| Commander roles | Make orders, position, morale, and ally movement matter. |
| Guardian-style protection | Put civilians, banners, siege teams, casters, and wounded allies on the map. |
| Siege tools | Give objectives that need crews, time, repairs, sabotage, or protection. |
| Battle vehicles | Make movement, cover, repair, and pursuit part of the encounter. |
| War magic | Tie battlefield spell use to objectives, rituals, defenses, and enemy counters. |
Battlecry works best when it gives the party a war job, not when it replaces the session with a speech about troop movement.
Fronts, Clocks, And Consequences
| Front tracker | What advances it | What happens when it fills |
|---|---|---|
| Enemy invasion | Failed defenses, lost scouting, poor diplomacy, delayed missions | A town falls, a bridge is taken, or refugees flood the road. |
| Supply collapse | Raids, winter, disease, lost wagons, destroyed workshops | Prices rise, healing suffers, siege weapons go silent, morale drops. |
| Civilian panic | Atrocities, rumors, visible losses, food shortage | Riots, desertion, bad political orders, or rushed evacuation. |
| Rival faction | Ignored allies, broken promises, captured leaders | An ally defects, withholds troops, or demands concessions. |
| Supernatural threat | Unchecked rituals, monster raids, cursed battlefields | The war becomes stranger and harder to solve with ordinary troops. |
Use clocks lightly. The players should understand that delay matters, but they should not feel like the campaign is a spreadsheet with swords glued on.
Mission Types
| Mission | Best PF2e tools | Failure that still moves the story |
|---|---|---|
| Scout the enemy | Survival, Society, Lore, stealth, hazards | The party learns less, alerts patrols, or misjudges enemy strength. |
| Break a supply line | Encounters, hazards, Crafting, Thievery, combat objectives | Supplies are delayed instead of destroyed, or the enemy retaliates. |
| Hold a position | Troops, terrain, siege tools, Guardian and Champion-style defense | The party saves lives but loses the location, or holds the gate at a cost. |
| Rescue civilians | Subsystems, hazards, social pressure, Medicine, athletics, mobility | Some are saved, others captured, and morale shifts. |
| Negotiate an alliance | Social encounters, Diplomacy, Deception, Intimidation, Society | The ally helps conditionally, late, or for an uncomfortable price. |
| Sabotage a weapon | Crafting, Thievery, hazards, stealth, timed objectives | The device misfires later, or the party leaves evidence behind. |
| Duel a commander | Encounter building, terrain, morale stakes, reputation | The commander escapes, yields, lies, or becomes politically useful. |
| Stop a ritual | Hazards, spell pressure, waves, skill actions, monster defenders | The ritual is weakened, redirected, or delayed instead of fully stopped. |
War campaigns improve when failure changes the board instead of ending the story. The players should fear consequences, not dead air.
Player Core And GM Core Fit
Player Core gives the moment-to-moment actions: Stride, Strike, Interact, Take Cover, Aid, Repair, Treat Wounds, Recall Knowledge, spellcasting, shields, and exploration activity. GM Core gives encounter budgets, subsystems, treasure, DCs, hazards, influence, reputation, and exploration structure.
In war play, ordinary actions become strategic:
| Table action | War meaning |
|---|---|
| Repair a gate | The next wave arrives later or loses its siege advantage. |
| Treat Wounds | A squad returns to duty, morale steadies, or an NPC survives interrogation. |
| Recall Knowledge | The party spots the enemy doctrine, monster trait, spell plan, or weak point. |
| Take Cover | The battlefield has real pressure and lines of fire. |
| Aid | PCs coordinate with soldiers, crews, scouts, and civilians. |
| Interact | Levers, banners, doors, powder stores, siege engines, and rescue tasks matter. |
If a war scene has no actions except Strike, you have built a normal combat wearing a helmet.
Monster Core And Player Core 2 Fit
Monster Core gives the war a face. Use different enemy groups differently: undead troops do not route like scared militia, fiends make contracts and betrayals part of the front, constructs turn a siege into an engineering problem, and dragons change the whole airspace of a battlefield.
Player Core 2 gives the party more war roles.
| Option | War role |
|---|---|
| Alchemist | Logistics, healing support, bombs, smoke, antidotes, battlefield preparation, and formula rewards. |
| Champion | Defensive anchors, civilian protection, morale, divine legitimacy, and shield lines. |
| Guardian | Objective defense, bodyguard work, chokepoints, and holding ground. |
| Commander | Orders, movement, coordinated tactics, ally positioning, and battlefield identity. |
| Investigator | Enemy plans, supply fraud, traitors, false orders, and the real reason the front is collapsing. |
| Rogue | Sabotage, infiltration, blackmail, assassination attempts, locks, traps, and quiet routes. |
| Cleric and Bard | Morale, healing, sanctified stakes, public ritual, speeches, and wartime social pressure. |
| Wizard | Research, battlefield control, countermeasures, rituals, wards, and logistical magic. |
| Gunslinger and Inventor | Firearms, siege support, gadgets, repairs, and tech objectives. |
Hot take: the Commander is not the only war class. It is just the class honest enough to put the group project on the character sheet.
War Campaign Rhythm
| Session type | Purpose | Good table question |
|---|---|---|
| Briefing | Reveal stakes, fronts, commanders, limits, and available support | What can the army do, and what must the PCs do? |
| Field mission | Let the PCs solve a problem an army cannot | What changes if the mission succeeds only partly? |
| Skirmish | Use Battlecry-facing tools for a set-piece battle | What objective matters more than kills? |
| Fallout | Show casualties, political reaction, supply changes, and morale | Who pays for the win? |
| Downtime | Allow retraining, crafting, troop bonds, repairs, healing, and new orders | What can the party improve before the next front moves? |
| Escalation | Let enemy commanders adapt instead of repeating the same plan | What did the enemy learn from the PCs? |
This rhythm keeps the campaign from becoming endless battle scenes. Even players who love tactical combat need fallout, recovery, politics, and consequences.
Battlefield Encounter Design
| Battlefield feature | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Objectives | Hold the bridge, protect the surgeon, destroy the engine, rescue the scouts, or carry the banner. |
| Timers | Reinforcements, ritual rounds, collapsing walls, burning buildings, or closing gates. |
| Cover and lanes | Makes ranged weapons, shields, movement, and reactions matter. |
| Difficult terrain | Mud, rubble, trenches, smoke, bodies, barricades, and broken streets change plans. |
| Hazards | Fire, traps, artillery zones, unstable walls, cursed ground, and moving vehicles. |
| Morale events | A commander falls, a banner rises, civilians cheer, troops panic, or a monster arrives. |
| Multiple elevations | Walls, towers, rooftops, ships, ridges, and siege platforms give roles to different builds. |
| Reinforcement choices | The party can stop, delay, redirect, or negotiate with incoming forces. |
Use conditions in combat, actions and activities, weapons, armor, runes, and consumables to keep the scene grounded in normal play.
Supply, Treasure, And Rewards
War rewards should not be only coins looted from enemies. A military campaign has different treasure lanes.
| Reward | Why it fits |
|---|---|
| Treasure by level parcels | Keeps the party's math intact even when the fiction is wartime. |
| Siege equipment | Gives the party strategic leverage for a scene or front. |
| Fortifications | Turns a location into a reward and a responsibility. |
| Faction access | Unlocks gear, services, troops, teachers, formulas, or legal protection. |
| Medical support | Makes Medicine, healing supplies, and recovery part of the war. |
| Crafting workshops | Supports repairs, ammunition, vehicles, armor, and gadgets. |
| Intelligence | Maps, passwords, patrol schedules, enemy doctrine, and supply routes. |
| Reputation | Changes how commanders, civilians, rivals, and allies respond. |
Use Crafting, firearms, gadgets, and technology in campaigns when the war has powder, vehicles, prototypes, or machine logistics.
Morale And Civilian Stakes
| Stake | How to show it |
|---|---|
| Morale | Desertion, songs, rumors, bad orders, public gratitude, panic, and speeches. |
| Refugees | Escort missions, supply scarcity, disease, crowd scenes, and impossible choices. |
| Prisoners | Exchanges, interrogation, mercy, propaganda, rescue attempts, and legal disputes. |
| Occupation | Curfews, resistance cells, rationing, informants, and hard compromises. |
| Propaganda | Lies, heroic stories, forged orders, enemy claims, and damaged reputations. |
| Trauma | Exhaustion, fear, memorials, NPC changes, and downtime consequences. |
War content can get heavy fast. Use session zero to set tone, lines, safety expectations, and the kind of wartime stories the table actually wants.
Using Technology And Siege
War is the most natural home for technology-heavy material.
| Tool | Best use |
|---|---|
| Siege weapons and battle vehicles | Objectives, defenses, convoys, river crossings, fortress assaults, and retreats. |
| Firearms | Scouts, sharpshooters, city defense, powder politics, and battlefield intimidation. |
| Gadgets | Sabotage, escape tools, signals, one-scene tricks, and engineering problems. |
| Vehicles | Pursuit, transport, mobile cover, repairs, terrain, and crew protection. |
| Fortifications | Player-owned objectives that can be improved, damaged, infiltrated, and defended. |
Do not add siege engines if every fight is in a 30-foot room. That is not a cannon problem. That is a room problem.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Better approach |
|---|---|
| Simulating every soldier | Track fronts, objectives, morale, supply, and consequences. |
| Making every session a battlefield | Mix briefings, missions, social scenes, downtime, fallout, and escalations. |
| Letting the army solve everything | Give PCs decisive missions that armies cannot handle. |
| Letting PCs solve everything alone | Let armies move fronts, hold ground, suffer losses, and need leadership. |
| Building fights with no objectives | Add gates, bridges, civilians, siege crews, commanders, banners, rituals, or timers. |
| Forgetting treasure pacing | Use war rewards without starving fundamental upgrades. |
| Ignoring civilians | War without civilians is just terrain with flags. |
| Treating retreat as failure | Retreat can save lives, preserve resources, and change the next mission. |
| Using morale as mind control | Morale should pressure choices, not override player agency. |
| Letting tone drift too dark | Check in during session zero and after intense arcs. |
Best Links
- Start at the PF2e guide hub, then use the GM guide hub for procedures.
- Use Battlecry, skirmish warfare, troops and garrisons, siege weapons and battle vehicles, and factions for the war layer.
- Use encounter building, subsystems, social encounters, hazards, environment, and treasure by level for GM execution.
- Use Commander, Guardian, Champion, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, and Gunslinger when building PC war roles.
Hot Take
A war campaign is strongest when the PCs cannot win the war by themselves, but the war cannot be won without them.
