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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 2797685" data-attributes="member: 9254">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.</blockquote>

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