Goals of PC's caught in a siege?

[Jack99]

In my campaign, the hometown/base of operations of my players is about to be attacked by a small horde of orcs. One of the main BBEG's, a disciple of Asmodeus has duped the orcs clans into allying with the purpose of sacking Fallcrest. The disciple needs unrestricted access to the town and castle in order to gain possession of an artifact.

Now, the question is, how to run this siege/war.

So far, in past campaigns, I have tried a couple of different approaches:

1) Using One Bad Egg's Hardboiled Armies, I created army units and the players ran a war on a big scale, controlling units of several thousand soldiers, maneuvering on the battlefield.

2) During the siege of a fey town attacked by trolls, goblins and other fey menaces, the PC's got key targets (opposing army's leaders) which they took out one by one, while sneaking around behind enemy lines.

3) During yet another siege, the PC's were just there - meaning that they participated in a lot of different skirmishes, but without any specific goal other than whichever the PC's came up with themselves.

So, I was wondering what other cool ways there are to run the siege of a town/castle?

I play 4e, but a skill challenge is not an option for this one.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mouseferatu]

A combination of 2 and 3 works best. Give the PCs some specific offensive objectives (take out certain enemy leaders/weapons), some specific defensive objectives (deal with the sappers the defenders have detected coming under the east wall, guard the general from assassination), and some "right place, right time" events (rescue the injured from a burning church/hospital, fill in the gap where the orcs just broke through the postern and slaughtered the guard).

Honestly, while I tried to capture some of this myself in "The Temple Between" (Scales of War adventure), the single most perfect example of this sort of thing is the one that I got my own inspiration from: the 3E adventure The Red Hand of Doom. The siege section of that adventure is the best I've ever seen for any modern incarnation of D&D, and should, IMO, serve as the model for all to come.

 

[Jack99]

A combination of 2 and 3 works best. Give the PCs some specific offensive objectives (take out certain enemy leaders/weapons), some specific defensive objectives (deal with the sappers the defenders have detected coming under the east wall, guard the general from assassination), and some "right place, right time" events (rescue the injured from a burning church/hospital, fill in the gap where the orcs just broke through the postern and slaughtered the guard).

Honestly, while I tried to capture some of this myself in "The Temple Between" (Scales of War adventure), the single most perfect example of this sort of thing is the one that I got my own inspiration from: the 3E adventure The Red Hand of Doom. The siege section of that adventure is the best I've ever seen for any modern incarnation of D&D, and should, IMO, serve as the model for all to come.

I agree with you, on all counts and would have tossed you some xp if I could.

I like both The Temple Between and Red Hand of Doom. In fact, one of the sieges I made in my last campaign was structured much like the one in Red Hand of Doom (I assume you mean the siege of Brindol), which is probably why I am seeking advice here on ENworld - I would like (if possible) for this siege to play differently than the previous sieges my players have experienced.

 

[Phaezen]

It might help to think of the siege as a dynamic dungeon. Each encounter within the siege environment can equate to a room or a grouping of rooms within the dungeon.

Take a map of the town and identify encounter areas within and outside the walls of the besieged town, as well as routes between the areas, with travel times.

Stealing a bit from Ari, the party can be given objectives, both defensive and offensive, set up as minor and major quests within the siege. Each area should have at least one minor quest. Major quests can be split between the encounters, to add a sense of urgency as the party will have to move between encounter areas to complete vital missions. Also build in time constraints to some of the quests or the give the party choices of 2 or more quests with the rider they only have time to successfully complete a small number. Allow for degrees of success and failure in the quests

Make the character make decisions at key points in completing each quest, if they have made a minor success in one area, have a message come through about a new danger in another. Consider letting players know about overall progress in the defence of the town, or give the the option to return to a command centre to find out.

Each successful or failed quest should change adjacent areas within the town, opening up travel routes if an assault is successfully repelled, or closing them if not, reinforcing defenders in key areas, or depleting resources.

More to follow...

 

[the Jester]

Well, I ran a siege a while back that worked really well- I set up two sections on the battlemat: one had a rough map of the town at a "unit" scale, where 1 mini was a unit of soldiers, and one had the wall at miniature scale. The pcs had to divide themselves- some worked artillery and catapults on the city-scale map, while the others (with a bunch of minion npcs) had to fight off minions scaling the walls.

The unit scale guys had to fend off siege towers and enemy ballistae, then an attack on the gates by ram-wielding ogres. If a tower reaches the walls, things get far worse for the wall team, who are repelling minion after minion, and then eventually a crack team of non-minion bad guys.

It was, quite frankly, really awesome.

 

[NewJeffCT]

It might help to think of the siege as a dynamic dungeon. Each encounter within the siege environment can equate to a room or a grouping of rooms within the dungeon.

Take a map of the town and identify encounter areas within and outside the walls of the besieged town, as well as routes between the areas, with travel times.

Stealing a bit from Ari, the party can be given objectives, both defensive and offensive, set up as minor and major quests within the siege. Each area should have at least one minor quest. Major quests can be split between the encounters, to add a sense of urgency as the party will have to move between encounter areas to complete vital missions. Also build in time constraints to some of the quests or the give the party choices of 2 or more quests with the rider they only have time to successfully complete a small number. Allow for degrees of success and failure in the quests

Make the character make decisions at key points in completing each quest, if they have made a minor success in one area, have a message come through about a new danger in another. Consider letting players know about overall progress in the defence of the town, or give the the option to return to a command centre to find out.

Each successful or failed quest should change adjacent areas within the town, opening up travel routes if an assault is successfully repelled, or closing them if not, reinforcing defenders in key areas, or depleting resources.

More to follow...

I would agree with these ideas - a lot of good stuff here. I would make sure that the goals are clearly defined for each success & failure, though. Maybe not always for the players, but for you the DM.

 

[David Howery]

I ran a couple of siege scenarios back in the day, and what the PCs can do kinda depends on what levels they are. I ran a full bore city siege scenario when they were only 2nd level, and they were hiding from the giant flaming balls of pitch the enemy catapults tossed over just as much as the 0-level nobodies. When they were higher up (6th level or so), I ran a smaller siege scenario based on Rorke's Drift (I even copied the historical map almost exactly), with the PCs and a handful of elite infantry stuck in a crumbling fort surrounded by several thousand goblins...

 

[haakon1]

Scale?

I ran a smaller siege scenario based on Rorke's Drift (I even copied the historical map almost exactly), with the PCs and a handful of elite infantry stuck in a crumbling fort surrounded by several thousand goblins...

Yeah, the smaller scale siege, where you can play out all the NPC's on both sides is what I've done.

But it won't work well much beyond a company-sized (100-150 per side) engagement, I'd think.

The Rourke's Drift scenario, where a company is defending and thousands are attacking, would be interesting to try though . . .

You could do something like this with a larger settlement if you assume most of the civilians are cowering in the central fortress, so they don't contribute to the fight and aren't threatened unless the PC's and friends lose.

 

[David Howery]

Yeah, the smaller scale siege, where you can play out all the NPC's on both sides is what I've done.

But it won't work well much beyond a company-sized (100-150 per side) engagement, I'd think.

The Rourke's Drift scenario, where a company is defending and thousands are attacking, would be interesting to try though . . .

You could do something like this with a larger settlement if you assume most of the civilians are cowering in the central fortress, so they don't contribute to the fight and aren't threatened unless the PC's and friends lose.

My game was back in 2E days, and I was trying out the 2E Battlesystem rules (a vast improvement over that godawful clunky 1E edition). From what I remember, it was a hell of an exciting time in the PCs' lives... except for the thief, who didn't have much to do. So after a hole appeared in the enemy lines, they sent him out to get help from the nearest friendly garrison. He had a rough time of it, dodging wolfriders and the like... and then he picked the wrong way to run and almost ran smack into another force of goblins coming to help out the first bunch back at the fort. So, he was pretty much forced to run all the way back to the fort and sit in there as the reinforced goblin army besieged them for days. IIRC, the game ended with the players just barely squeaking out a win, down to their last unit (and hp), forted up in the last redoubt, and broke the morale of the last few goblin units trying to break in...

 

[havard]

How about using the siege as a backdrop for different story? Say the PCs have to find a lost artifact or rescue a princess in the middle of the siege. This works best if the castle under siege is falling and the PCs will have to deal with invading forces while trying to accomplish their goals. Even more dramatic if they have enemies on both sides of the battle, perhaps an evil prince is trying to get away with the princess or the corrupt high priest trying to steal the artifact that the PCs are looking for?

Havard