Heavy cavalry attack help ... [Dragonegg players stay out!]

[Darklone]

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT: INVASION OF ARUN'KID (Kingdoms of Kalamar adventure)
Ok.... This might as well be in Plots&Places but I need more rules heavy advice than ideas... It's for a huge low level combat.

The situation is as follows: A brigand camp (kinda Robin Hood Movie with Kevin Costner, treehouses with bridges but one open obvious entrance) will be attacked by 12 guys in rather heavy armour on horses. The players might or might not participate (though I assume that the soldiers will do their best to keep the puny farmerboys at home).

Numbers and levels:
Brigands: ca 40, men and women, 6 goblins. Mostly light armours, small wooden shields, shortbows. 5 leaders include a brigand3/adept3, a halforc bbn1/brigand3, a wizard (summoner) 2 and some other lvl2 warriors.
Soldiers: 12 guys, one lvl5 ftr captain, one herald (perhaps bard), 10 ftr 2 with chainmail, large shield.

The soldiers underestimate the threat in this case. They are used to fight smaller groups of about 10 brigands, not a small army well prepared on their home turf with traps. Additionally, the brigands know that the soldiers are coming.

I have a small collection of pits with spikes around the tree houses, trip wires and ropes between trees... as well as swinging tree log that can be used to kick a rider from the horse (and smash some ribs as well).

What I am looking for are more ideas how to annihilate the soldiers to shock the players a bit and keep them from an all too obvious frontal assault (though infantry would be at a huge advantage).

Please... if you propose something: Give the rules for it too. I haven't played much with cavalry till now and will probably forget some important parts.

Some questions:

• If a rider on his horse rides into a pit trap, who has to make a save, him or his mount?
• Assume a rider is thrown from his horse with the good old rope trick between two trees, how much damage will he take and how can he avoid this?
• How do the rules support the speed of a horse that runs into a trip wire concerning the damage of horse and rider?

Thanks a lot for proposals and advice!

 

[LostSoul]

• If a rider on his horse rides into a pit trap, who has to make a save, him or his mount?
• Assume a rider is thrown from his horse with the good old rope trick between two trees, how much damage will he take and how can he avoid this?
• How do the rules support the speed of a horse that runs into a trip wire concerning the damage of horse and rider?

1. I'd give the mount a Reflex Save OR let the Rider, if he has the Mounted Combat feat, use his Ride check for the mount's Reflex Save. If the mount falls, I'd then let the Rider make a Soft fall Ride check, DC 15, for the rider; failure means he's fallen into the pit trap.

2. I would give 1d6 falling damage if the rider fell off the horse; I might give the trap an Attack bonus of +10 or whatever, and if the trap misses then the rider's avoided it.

3. They don't. Eyeball it.

 

[Darklone]

I slowly get the impression that the rules about falling from a horse are slightly ridiculous...

Especially that soft fall Riding check...

 

[Darklone]

Bump!

Hey guys, I need help

 

[Cugel]

I'd be really careful with this. Just the other night, the group I play in had a pitched battle with about 50 orcs and 2 ogres. Our group was made up of 7 1-3 level characters, all mounted. The cleric (me), the paladin, and one fighter were mounted on heavy warhorse, the rest on light warhorses. We DESTROYED those orcs and ogres. So I guess the moral of my story is, don't underestimate the power of the mounted combatant.

 

[Conaill]

So I guess the moral of my story is, don't underestimate the power of the mounted combatant.

Yeah! Especially when fighting a bunch of archers in trees!

Seriously, if the soldiers don't know the brigands will be up in the trees, they're likely to get hosed by ranged fire.

If they do know, or can react to the circumstances fast enough, their strategy should be to torch the trees! That will destroy the brigand's camp, and chase them out of the trees without too much risk to the soldiers. (Keep humidity and wind speed in mind though! If the soldiers don't time this right, they might get stuck in the fire themselves, and/or burn down the whole forest...)

That being said, the brigand's strategy should be based on these three points:

1) keep fire under control
2) use primarily ranged fire against these tin cans on horses
3) take away the enemy's mobility by targeting the horses.

Fire control may be tricky depending on conditions, and could easily take the full attention of the adept3 and wiz2 if you try to do this with magical means. Hang a (camoeflaged) bucket of water in each surrounding tree, and assign all non-fighters (women and children) to fire suppression duty.

Caltrops are excellent against cavalry, especially since the brigands won't be running around on ground level anyway. That will limit the horses to move at 1/2 speed only. If you have traps that depend on speed (like wires to trip the horses or decapitate the riders), throw caltrops only after those have been set off.

 

[Cugel]

Yeah! Especially when fighting a bunch of archers in trees!

You know, had I actually read the first post a little more closely, I would have caught this obvious condition -hangs head in shame-

 

[LostSoul]

I slowly get the impression that the rules about falling from a horse are slightly ridiculous...

Especially that soft fall Riding check...

Why is that? It's enough to kill your normal Commoner 1, and unless he has a Str bonus, your normal Commoner even with max ranks in Ride is going to fail that check most of the time.

 

[Melriken]

I belive the sudo official rule for damage from things like falling from a horse (or hitting a wall while moving fast) would be 1d6 per 10' of movement planned for the round -OR- the falling damage (1d6 per 10' fallen) so in this case it would be quite substancial for the calvery if they charge to fast.

I would let them do a ride check to negate the first 1d6 (dc 15 from safe fall).

as for avoiding the ropes, I would give a reflex save to let them duck it. The DC is really up to you, but I think something in the dc 12 - 15 range would be apropriate (SP).

* The rule for damage above is extrapolated from the damage caused by monsters throwing PCs against walls or such and is done from memory, accuracy is not promissed, however should be high. Possibly half the damage because the rope has a good degree of give in it.


as for stratagys I would say that under the actual complex there would be any number of pit traps, and other fun things, however as you get away from the complex these things would disapear. You would however have covered trenches or lone archer platforms to provide defence. The brigands don't walk under the complex, so they can trap it, however they do walk to and from it... Note: if the kids play under the complex then they shouldnt trap it either.

I would say that the calvary would be harrassed by archers long before they get to the complex, and the area would be uneaven ground, providing a penalty to ride checks and halfing movement (that or preventing the horse from taking a run action)

also worth noting, Trees are very hard to get to burn, the solders should try to set the bridges and houses on fire, these are smaller targets then the trees themselfs.

another note: the brigands have higher ground, so they get bonuses to hit. (+1 iirc)

 

[Darklone]

Thanks for the advices so far!

Burning the trees is not easily accomplished due to weather and preparations by the brigands and the cavalry is not prepared for that. Their officer expects a ride in, slaughter all, ride home fight.

The brigand leader knows this and will allow the riders to close in nearly to the entrance before most of his till then hidden archers start to fire.

Thanks for the caltrops, this was exactly what I forgot I will use them to cut off the escape route of the cavalry.

As for the pit traps and so, I will probably have the first two or three riders in the bulk have a messy fall and the rest will slow down and try to reach the entrance to get to the archers in melee and out of the line of fire. The brigands will use caltrops then and use some acid flasks on the first heavily armoured soldiers.

Adept and wizard are not very important for that fight magicwise due to their spell selection for that day.

As for the players, I expect them to annihilate the brigands later. Won't be too easy, but since they will be warned about the traps...