D&D 5E War

[Nareau]

My players just hit 9th level, and got news from one of the dwarven queens that she's going to attack the human capitol city in a few weeks. She's got dwarven, drow, and svirfneblin troops with her, and her goal is to overthrow the evil human wizard-kings who rule the land.

There's also an orcish army on its way, and word is they've got ogres, orcs, giants, and a powerful dragon with them.

The human city is home to the wizards' academy, a small horde of undead they control, the city guard and some army troops, and potentially some golems and other constructs. And, of course, several very high level (15-20) wizards.

It's going to be a pretty big fight.

So my questions are: What are some ways I can make it really epic? How can I get the PCs involved in crucial parts of the attack (they're allied with the attackers)? I'm planning for the attackers to succeed in taking the city, but I don't really know what happens next. How would you run something like this? Are there good modules, sourcebooks, etc I should dig into?

I guess I should also mention: the campaign world is set up so there are no human divine spellcasters, only the other races.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Take some inspiration from MMOs. Make the characters a behind the lines strike force. Give them some discreet goals they have to achieve while the big armies fight, or in preparation for the attack. Take out enemy captains, clear out a strongpoint, get the gates open, disrupt a ritual, sabotage.

Alternative see if you can work up some idea of them leading their own units of troops an some mass combat and morale rules, perhaps.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

 

[aco175]

I played in one when I was young and I thought it was great. Maybe it was because I was 14, but I always liked they way the DM made the PCs feel like the center of the fight. Sort of like when the undead army shows up in Lord of the Rings and the main scenes are on Gimli and the elf.

I was never able to capture the same now that I am an adult and the DM. It could be that I expect more or are not as good as I could be at laying out the scenes. My advice is to have some set scenes and make encounters of them. One of the mages can get the PCs to the top of the gate, boom, encounter. A big bad guy comes out of the main hall with a troupe of underlings, boom, encounter. Don't worry about the little forces shooting arrows and battling further down the wall or ramming the gate.

Another idea I read about is to make a group of lower level PCs for the players to play, but have them all killed. Sort of like in Rogue1 when the heroes are fighting to upload the plans of the death star. We already knew they were dying, but their deaths were awesome and made the mission a success. Giving the players a one-shot character that they may not normally play lets the player have fun and when the PC dies it is not as stinging to the player. Have the band complete some cool mission like open a tunnel or find the plans to the secret door. As a bonus when the Darth Vader bad guy kills them and wipes his boot on them, the players will want to get revenge.

 

[LordEntrails]

I would suggest you take the approach of [MENTION=6801311]KahlessNestor[/MENTION], but add some complexity.

Basically map out how you think the war may progress. Find key events in the battle(s), such as taking the main gate, blowing up a sally port, destroying a catapult, etc. Then figure out what will happen if each of those things happen or don't happen. Those are the events that you have the players involced in. And make it that they may not succeed at each mission.

For example, the defenders have three catapults. The PC's have to destroy these (somehow), each catapult destroys 1 random unit of the attackers each day. So the quicker they are destroyed, the fewer casualties the attackers take. Then when they attack the walls, Give the army a bonus towards success for each unti remaining and if the main gate is taken, and etc.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Give them the one mission no one will take, behind enemy lines, etc. a la Dirty Dozen or a dozen other movies. They see the war happening around them, but their obligations are specific.

Then have them captured after they succeed, and you cue up The Great Escape.

 

[KarinsDad]

Make sure that you make each Wizard that the PCs see in action unique (maybe via a leaning towards specialization spells). Flesh them out.

Also, why are you planning on having the attackers succeed? It sounds like they have numbers, but Wizards should be played extremely intelligent (i.e. tactical to emulate their high intelligences). A single Incendiary Cloud could almost wipe out a battalion if it is done in a bottleneck where the foes cannot escape.

A golem alone could wipe out an army.

To make it epic, make sure that the dwarven queens army is on the ropes and it's the actions of the PCs that make the difference. If the PCs screw it up, then the Wizards win.

 

[Quickleaf]

My players just hit 9th level, and got news from one of the dwarven queens that she's going to attack the human capitol city in a few weeks. She's got dwarven, drow, and svirfneblin troops with her, and her goal is to overthrow the evil human wizard-kings who rule the land.

There's also an orcish army on its way, and word is they've got ogres, orcs, giants, and a powerful dragon with them.

The human city is home to the wizards' academy, a small horde of undead they control, the city guard and some army troops, and potentially some golems and other constructs. And, of course, several very high level (15-20) wizards.

It's going to be a pretty big fight.

Is it a three-way battle? Dwarves (+PCs) vs. orcish horde vs. human wizards?

So my questions are: What are some ways I can make it really epic? How can I get the PCs involved in crucial parts of the attack (they're allied with the attackers)? I'm planning for the attackers to succeed in taking the city, but I don't really know what happens next. How would you run something like this? Are there good modules, sourcebooks, etc I should dig into?

The best war-based scenario I've read is Red Hand of Doom (from 3.5e), which is great for it's use of victory points & flashpoint battles, war timelines, and interesting objectives for PCs to pursue on the battlefield.

Ideally, the answers to your questions should stem from things you've established about the forces & the scenario. Let me explain...

What are some ways I can make it really epic?
You've established the wizards use servitor constructs. Maybe a preemptive attack to sabotage their golem forges is necessary to prevent the wizards from sending golem reinforcements during the planned main assault. Maybe there's a gnomish tinker the PCs need to sway to their side (or otherwise blackmail) to smuggle them inside the golem forges. Maybe there are golem control rods they need to destabilize. Maybe they can use those rods to cause golems to go berserk. Maybe there's something like an apparatus of Kwalish they can commandeer during their escape.

How can I get the PCs involved in crucial parts of the attack?
An NPC they care about was turned into an undead servitor by the wicked wizards and now guards the postern gate into the city with an force of wights. While the dwarven queen advocates a "kill all the undead" philosophy, out of respect to the PCs for the services they've done for her in the past & because the NPC is their friend, she lets the players have a shot at trying to break the undead curse afflicting the NPC and soldiers under his/her command. Maybe the citizens of the human city don't realize their favored defender NPC has been turned undead... or maybe their culture views the undead as ancestral guardians who made the ultimate sacrifice and should be revered... so the if the PCs hope to sway the human populace against the wicked wizards they need to tread carefully.

Or maybe there's a tunnel the dwarves are working on, maybe a PC caster is using move earth or other powerful magic to shape the tunnel. They plan to send sappers in, but something goes wrong, and an explosion traps the PCs in the tunnels under the human capitol city.

I'm planning for the attackers to succeed in taking the city, but I don't really know what happens next.

If that's the case, then what are the actual stakes of the battle? What is uncertain? Why should the PCs care? What difference / meaningful choices can they make?

How would you run something like this?

I ran a war-scenario at about 9th level (this was in 4th edition) for 7 players, focused on their PCs, with the battle more as background.

I created little dilemmas - decisions for the PCs to make during the flow of battle. For example... The dracolich they accidentally freed at 3rd level lands on the battlefield, under the enemy's control to cover the enemy's retreat. It has their ally Prince Tuirean pinned down and is laying waste to his cavalry. Do you want to trust your allies to repel the dracolich so you can close in on the BBEG's command squadron or do you want to face it yourselves and save Tuirean? Another dilemma: Do you wish to take a boat across the magical misty waters to the BBEG's isle fortress with just your eladrin allies in order to interrupt the ritual-in-progress ASAP or do you wish to rest and wait for all your allies to assemble and make an assault en masse?

One trick I used is "ally cards" which the party collected as they held negotiations and made allies over the course of the campaign. When played, these cards had various effects, ranging from longbowmen making a longbow attack on all creatures without cover in a certain swath of the battlefield, to cavalry charging, to a ballista that never could hit the same spot twice.

 

[Horwath]

As mentioned already, I think that PCs as cannon fodder are a waste of resources in mass combats.

Use them as commandos, behind the line infiltrator, or as a spearhead to punch through key defence line.

Use them as sappers to weaken the walls, kill wizards that "channel" wards for magic defence of the city, poison defender water supply, start fires etc...

Let the mooks fight mooks en mass,

PCs job is to do something important that a regular grunt cannot.

 

[werecorpse]

At 9th level the characters actions should influence the result. You've already decided who will win but there can be other results that are up in the air. Decide what these are and how the characters may interact. They might be
1. The Dwarven queens consort may be killed and turned into an undead creature
2. An important wizard may escape with a powerful doomsday device
3. The drow svirfneblin alliance may break down
4. The dwarves may sustain such losses that they are weakened to the extent that the orcs will turn on them after the battle

Then leave clues for the characters to work out that these things may happen and where they need to be to stop them (so that it's the players choosing what to do based on their own work). Then design the encounters and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[transtemporal]

Imagine a city of geniuses who've had decades to plan and build magical defenses against an invasion. My question is: why do you think the attackers have a sliver of a chance?