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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DungeonMaster" data-source="post: 1986854" data-attributes="member: 27431">I've run an assault, defenders won.As a DM I've actually run an assault on a castle using 3rd edition rules in painstaking detail. I accounted for everything, wounds, dying, dead, stabalised. The castle was designed with dark ages technology in mind but the players were allowed to use their 20th century brains to try and improve on the castle in the months of preperation they had before war. The assault took over 4 game sessions (a full month) to run and we didn't even finish it - we played until a clear victor emerged and the rest was left as is.  Here's the breakdown of the abilities of both sides at the time of battle:The ennemies: 2000  orcs. One 11th level lich. One 16th level barbarian. 30 5th and below level spellcasters. Charmed young adult red dragon. Charmed purple worm. Dominated ranger cohort of the allies. Planar binding of Hezrou and 4 elementals one of each type. Veiled troops posing as commoners inside the castle. 6 Charmed hill giants. 60 catapults. Too many ladders. The heroes: 350 1st level warrior humans. 250 1st level warrior elves. 400 commoners (equiped as levy but would not fight beyond 1 hp damage). One 11th level wizard, druid, cleric and elven archer. One 12th level barbarian. Three cohorts, one rogue, one ranger and one paladin all of 10th level. 10 Awakened trees and a few friendly treants. 1 Awakened giant squid moat monster. Planar ally Astral deva.5 catapults. 5 ballista. The heroes and lich had skirmished before, and a rather unfortunate run in with illithid led to highly decimated defender commoners (and rebuilding some of the castle).  The elven troops barely made it into the castle before the orc forces arrived because they were mislead by hallucinatory terrain and went off track. Major Spells that actually did things: The ennemies: Control weather - fog. Miss chance against archers was invaluable. D&D archery with a 1 in 20 auto-hit will decimate troops really quickly. Not to mention elven troops with masterwork bows and arrows (the elf's elite force of 50 did a LOT of damage). Veil - caused chaos in the castle. Things were set on fire and troops needed to be diverted at the critical moment. Was painful. Dominate - caused chaos among the heroes. Ranger almost assasinated the wizard, wizard could not dispel it for many crucial rounds. Wall of fire - burning huge groups on the battlements and setting fire to everything in a line is much much better than a fireball. Confusion - nice range, very very upseting results to defenders. The allies:Hallow - aid effect tied to it effectively doubles all defender's hp. Magic circle effect nullifies summoned creatures very quickly.  Forbiddance - avoids the horrible idea of the lich teleporting in and trashing everything. Continual flame - critical when fighting orcs at night. Enough to go everywhere. Fabricate - supplied oil and other quickly needed substances in a jiffy. Arcane lock - held the gates in place agains the veiled soldiers who tried to lower them.Wall of force - last ditch to hold the gates together. Wall of fire - permanent, guards against most attacks. Greater magic weapon on arrows - 50 one shots is actually quite worth it and long duration.Move earth - Huge area huge range, makes things smooth. Takes time but it's not worth runing out to get them at the thousand foot mark when they have 2000 arrows per round.   Spells that didn't do things: Passwall: Wall of iron blocks a passwall in it's tracks and it's free to make tons of them. Teleport: Forbiddance blocks it so does hallow with dimensional anchor tied to it. Summonings: Often useless in hallowed radius. Things that weren't effective: Siege weapons, not surprisingly. 60 catapults die really pretty quickly against treants and animated trees. Giants are more mobile, fire much faster and more accurately even with trained crews. Summoned monsters. Summoning doesn't last long enough to be effective and has very short range. Things that were disproportionately effective: Permanent spells. Wands. You burn through your spells faster than a magic missile flies in an assault. Lyre of building. Bardic music. Total battle lasted 6 min game time. All called and charmed monsters died except for Inky the awakened squid (who fought the purple worm in a battle of the titans).</blockquote>

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