Helm's Deep MK2

[Darkfire]

Hi All

My roleplaying group went to see TTT and due to the kewl vibes we all got from the movie I decided to use Helm's Deep in my campaign. I run a tatical campaign and the PCs are going to ensiege the Helm's Deep equivalent in our world.

I want to give the PCs a bit of a tougher fight for the keep than occured in the movie. No offense, but the defenses on that keep were dismal

We run on the same tech level as the movie, bar the awesome scaling ladders from the movie. The PCs do have access to more conventional seige equipement and to large hordes of followers.
Low magic world, but engineering skills equivalent to Europe before gunpoweder was used.

I've already enlarged the keep, it was way to small to be realistic, and added a tower to anchor the other side of the wall.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks

 

[Nifft]

Non-Magic:

Water flows in through caves, water goes out through caves. No drain-hole in the wall.

Trebuchets, etc. inside the castle for firing buckshot into the seige force.

METAL DOORS and a DRAWBRIDGE. Can you imagine how hard it would have been to attack that door if it had been a drawbridge instead of just a stone bridge?

Hot oil. I'm very surprised that Tolkein didn't allow this stuff to be used by the defenders. Non-hot oil would have slowed down the heavily shielded ram force. ("Okay, all those guys wearing Full Plate get to make Balance checks.")


Low Magic:

Soften Earth & Stone on the land right outside the walls. Make it hard to plant ladders & seige machines.

Faerie Fire -- defenders must watch out for this. Anyone who gets it cast on them should leave the wall and go work on the seige engines, far out of sight.

Warp Wood -- this could destroy seige engines, ladders, etc.

Bless and Bane work on all allies within a large radius -- you can't beat those with a stick.

Darkness or Fog along the base of the wall -- make it REALLY hard to organize efforts to scale, while allowing defenders to attack those beyond the effect.

Grease works just as well as non-hot oil for slowing climb efforts.

Entangle is great if the area in front of the keep is mostly overgrown.

-- Nifft

 

[Shadowdancer]

The long bridge/ramp leading up to the main gate should have a short drawbridge right before the gate. Also, it should make a 90 degree turn right before the drawbridge (it will run parallel to the front wall of the keep) to keep the attacking force from having a straight shot at the gate, and make it harder to get a battering ram up to the gate. This also will expose the attackers to more arrow fire from the keep.

 

[Pbartender]

Put the keep and gate in the center of the valley, with walls stretching to towers at the edges of the valley. The walls should cross the valley in a concave "u" or "v" shape with the keep at the apex. That way, archers on the walls can provide flanking fire on troops assaulting the keep's gate.

Dig a 10' deep ditch in front of the wall.

The gatehouse should have a porticullis and a second gate behind the first gate. The "killing" area between the gates should have several arrow slits in the walls and murder holes in the ceiling for the previously mentioned boiling oil.

 

[firstborne]

Bah! Nobody uses oil; it's too expensive. Use boiling water or hot sand. It's free, and does pretty much the same thing. (As an added bonus, sand gets into everything and is a pain to get out. Everyone's been to the beach, right?)

 

[Darkfire]

Thanks

The drawbridge and portcullis are a must, cann't believe they were not in the movie

A lake, hmm yes, and a sluice gate, yes yes yes .

Also going to move all the decent (read Elvish) archers into the towers, it broke my heart to see them all slaughtered like that.

Sand could also work, I seem to remember that you can also load it into catapults, sort of like fine buckshot.

Yes the slaughter will be glorious , of course they'll break in, they are heroes after all. But it's nice when they make a serious effort.

 

[Darkness]

It's a bit long, but this thread might help...

 

[Darkfire]

Thanks Darkness

That thread is the one that got me thinking about posting to this forum. I just thought I would pick peoples minds who have just seen the movie.

Anyone know if it would be feasable for tunnelling to occur? Helm's Deep looked it like was built on rock outcrops and a glacier bed. That bed of rock and sand would make for difficulties keeping the tunnel from caving in. Not that I know anthing about engineering