Adventurers under siege

[kigmatzomat]

I ran a siege scenario recently. A large goblin horde (~6,000) attacked several fortified manors that were only a few miles apart. The PCs became aware of the first manor's defeat when the survivors suddenly appeared at their gate. The party warned the other two manors and started doing some scouting.

The goblins were led by several high level priests & druids who were using weather magic to shield their actions. The militia, based on roman legions, planned a tried and true phalanx attack on the goblins. The setting is one where powerful magic has been gone for centuries and the party has been part of its return. The party made a half-hearted attempt to warn the legions of the risk ("Hey, that probably won't work." "It's worked for the last century." "Okay, your funeral...") and then watched in surprise as a repel metal/stone broke the formation and club-weilding goblins started mauling the prone & unarmed legionnaires.

The PCs managed some horrific damage to the goblin forces (I completely forgot about Sunburst) but got distracted from their primary mission of destroying the siege towers, giving the goblins' champions time to show up and begin laying down the smack. The high priest used sanctuary to safely wander the battlefield mass healing the blinded & unconscious troops. The party managed to hurt the high priest pretty badly but the wildshaped goblin druid unleashed creeping doom to let the priest escape.

The rogue, once resurrected, went scouting and found only a token force of goblins near one of the manors. Not enough to pose a credible threat but enough to mimic a larger force in the foggy conditions. The legion decided to make an attack using a phalanx but the rogue explained that was bad and why. The legion switched to "skirmish" tactics, meaning leather armor and lots of archery. The rogue provided a distraction (love alchemists fire) that damaged the incomplete siege towers and the legion did a pretty good job of wiping out the goblin force with minimal casualties.

The goblins had planned on splitting their forces but to attack the remaining unblooded manor and distract the PCs with an epidemic of blinding fever courtesy of a wildshaped druid. Once the party noticed the disease it required virtually all of the cleric's heal spells to keep it under control. That gave the goblins a chance to summon a few powerful beasties and loot the other manor.

The PCs managed to teleport in the king's elite guard for reinforcements. The guard planned a skirmish strike on the goblin's wagon train fairly close to the sieges, knowing the goblins wouldn't be able to keep from reinforcing it. The terrain and roads would put the bulk of the goblin forces in relatively tight formation, perfect for an ambush of higher magicks (more sunbursts, firestorms, etc).

What they didn't prepare for was the use of divination magic. The party has a giant mental block where divinations are concerned; they simply never think to use them nor think about how they could be used against them. They have some strong anti-scrying devices but that doesn't help when more than a hundred unprotected individuals are aware of the plan. Even knowing there was a druid, they didn't make any effort at all to keep out or locate wildshaped foes, not even an "I use detect magic at random times to search the area."

The goblins turned things around, spending all night looting frantically and withdrawing from the area. A group of bait wagons with volunteers was in plain sight for the heroes to attack but instead of being filled with loot they had dozens of goblin archers. The PCs also got their own taste of sunburst though the legion took the brunt of it. Fortunately there was enough ground to cover that the legions could form up into squad phalanxes guilded by the ones who made their save vs. blindness before the goblin ground troops could close. The goblins were defeated without too many losses though the high priests once again escaped.

The PCs were still touted as heroes as all four manors would have fallen without their assistance, though they know they could have done better. The legion now has a decent primer on how to fight foes supported by High Magic and the king has senate support for the college of sorcery he's been trying to set up.

 

[Odhanan]

What Advice can you give me for pulling this off?

I'd say:

- Keep the conflict small enough for the PCs to remain involved. If the siege is too large, their role is minor, unless you use the Heroes of Battle technique (their involvement is key to the success of the army under siege, through targeted missions and "episodes" spanning over the whole siege).
- Let your players breathe. Let them come up with their own plans and tactics to defeat the enemy. That's what a siege in RPG is about. Don't try to twart all their efforts. Consider their plans and let them have victory if they deserve it.
- Let the fighters of your PC group shine. That's supposed to be their area of expertise, after all, even if the rules don't say so.
- Don't ever run a siege when you already took the decision of who wins in the end. This means that no matter what the PCs do, they don't have an impact on the siege itself. If you play a siege for the siege to be the center piece of the adventure (and not some other goals, like saving this or that person from the siege or eliminating this particular individual in the camp of the opponents), let the PCs be the heroes with the most impact on it.

I ran a siege once with RoleMaster. It went pretty well. The PCs rebelled against a baron/tyran and enlisted the whole village of the fief to put the baron's castle under siege. Between the keep and the village, there was a lake. All around, a forest in winter. This was absolutely awesome because the PCs came up with really inventive strategies. They won the day in the end, but more than half the village's inhabitants were dead by the next day. The survivors sure did thank the PCs, but anywhere they went in this shire, they were known as those who led so many sons and fathers to their death. A bittersweet outcome, really.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Oh, two other things:

1. A lesson from that session on initiative: Don't run all the bad guys--or even every group of 8 or so bad guys on the same initiative and insist on keeping it that way. This leads to some very bad results. For example: Group of orcs A breaks through the palisade (costing the actions of two orcs). The other six orcs then all run through into the town before anyone who was delaying can get in their way. This is bad because it prevents an effective first round defense of any breach in the wall. Instead, you need to work your initiative system so that individual delaying PCs can act after any given foe (just like the rules say they are supposed to be able to and just like delaying NPCs can act after any given PC and before the next one).

2. One thing you may consider doing is adapting some of the rules from the D&D minis game to speed up combat. All attacks do average damage in multiples of 5, for instance. (I wouldn't recommend removing the need to confirm criticals or grouping all saves together though). My observation is that normal D&D starts to get a bit unwieldy when you have more than 20 individuals on the battlefield. D&D minis handles 24 minis quite comfortably, but probably (I've no experience here but I'm guessing) breaks down when you get more than 50 minis on the map--it's still a skirmish game with no rules for formations or units, etc remember). You might even decide to only use five foot steps for PCs and commander/champion level NPCs (the lack of a five foot step is, I think, one of the things that makes D&D minis run more quickly since it means the number of options for most figures goes down noticably).

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Morale. Never forget morale.

If you can break the siegers morale, the PC's will have a better chance.

 

[frankthedm]

Get the DMG2 and use the Mob rules for the military units.

 

[kigmatzomat]

In the goblin siege I ran I used a few simplifications to make life easier.

1. Pre calculate average damage for NPC A vs NPC B. In my case I had the goblin grunts and goblin archers average damage versus peasants, legion, and guardsmen and vice versa.

2. Prepare any complex tactics and simplify them. My legionaires can shift ranks so that injured troops can fall back and trade places with healthy spear-weilders. My rule was this occurred at the 50% hp mark and then again at the 75% hp mark. This meant that once a trooper hit 50% hit points I started assigning damage to an as-yet uninjured trooper. I'd describe the motion and move the minis the first time it happened and from then on would only touch on it "the legions ranks constantly shift as the injured fall back and healthier move forward."

2. Decide break points. Goblins will fall back at 50% hps unless under some form of compulsion or one of the several "inspire rage" effects. They don't flee exactly but they try to move to an archer/spearchucker position. Once it seems that most of the goblins in an area have fallen back they begin a cautious retreat but will rout if pursued harshly.

3. Decide their reaction to unconventional weaponry (aka magic or siege weapons). Guardsmen facing what they think are common goblins wouldn't be surprised by arrows but might panick when they see flaming oil-soaked chunks of wood catapulted at them, powerful area effect spells or summoned creatures. Have the morale values pre-calculated for likely situations and make the rolls for groups.

4. Remember that people in groups often have a "someone else is taking care of it" attitude and will not always react as if they are on guard; this is why stealth missions are often successful.

5. There is no hive mind. NPCs need to communicate and it will take time. Bugles/drums are the fastest but they can only send basic signals (enemy north/south/east/west, charge, advance, retreat, regroup). Runners need time to get places.

6. Intentionally run some NPCs less efficiently than others. Even if you aren't the greatest tactician, it will help highlight the difference between elite and conscript troops. Plus it makes your life easier if you can be sloppy with the bulk of your forces. if one of your players thinks that mooks should be run better, offer to let them do so.