Help me defend (or attack) this kingdom (long)

[NewJeffCT]

You might want to check out The Mad King's Banquet, an adventure in the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga intended for 7-8th level characters.

The premise is that the nation of Dassen lies between the hostile Ragesian Empire, and the home base of the resistance, the city of Seaquen. The heroes need to get aid from the king of Dassen before Ragesia allies with him. But the king is already under the sway of the Ragesians, so the heroes must go to a nobleman, Duke Gallo, to ask for him to turn against his king for the sake of them all.

The module includes suggestions on how to turn things around a little bit, and replace the big fight between Gallo's and the king's forces with a fight between you and Ragesia, and there is a lot of action ranging from diplomacy to scouting the border to stopping assassination attempts. It's perhaps the adventure I'm most proud of so far in the series.

Good idea! I'll have to look into it. The nation to the immediate north of Pike is decidedly neutral in the conflict, but there may be ways to get them involved... the problem is that there may be a few smaller kingdoms to the North that *may* be tempted to throw their lot in with the Evil Empire. A mission could also be to convince them to not throw in, and that a united North could defeat the EE.

 

[Wolfwood2]

If you were a general of Pike and saw the 1,000 man garrisons at your three fortresses about to be confronted by at least 6,000 attackers each, what would you do? (or maybe 5,000 on two fortresses, and 18,000 on one?) Would withdrawing to the Guardian’s Valor citadel be a valid strategy? Maybe keep small groups of volunteers in each fortress to allow the main forces to withdraw? Or, do you hold out in the three fortresses as long as possible, and then hope they wear down the attackers enough that the citadel will repel the invaders? (Taking into account that none of them would know about the next paragraph… ) An army would take a good 9-10 days to march from the border fortresses to the citadel. Individuals and small groups - especially those mounted - could do it in far less time.

Unknown to anybody but the emperor, the Evil Empire has recruited and trained five seasoned warriors with wyverns as mounts. The emperor’s intention is to use them to soar in behind the citadel and attack defensive weaponry like catapults and trebuchets from behind (think the “Return of the King” movie when Gondor is besieged)

As Pike, I would reinforce and resupply the fortresses with as many troops and arrows as I could spare. A good fortress is a huge defensive force multiplier. I would also pay close attention to the supply lines of my enemies. 18,000 troops is a lot to feed. If they put all their eggs in one basket by attacking the fortresses one at a time, I make them pay by hitting food caravans arriving from the rear with raiding troops from the other fortresses.

I would also look into bribing the goblins to switch sides. No doubt this calls for the kingdom's best goblinoid negotiator, guarded by an elite team.

If possible, I have my highest level wizard scribe three scrolls, each with some good area effects. A wizard could do one multiple spell scroll of fireball, fireball, sleet storm, fireball each day (as that's only 900 gp total). Then a level 1 wizard in each of the fortresses equipped with one of the scrolls and have him use the spells judiciously to make the enemy cautious.

Overall I agree that if Pike can get a druid circle on their side, they benefit enormously.

 

[Tal Rasha]

Random ideas for the good guys...

As Wolfwood2 mentions, playing on the goblins' loyalties could be a good thing. Another thing you could do is "recruit" some of your own goblins, and have them attack one of the enemy human camps on the night before their expected initial assault. The (sure to be killed) goblin leader will have signs on him (clothing, armor, a scroll perhaps) that identifies him and his party as being sent by the (obviously traitorous) goblin camp.

You could have the PCs sneak into/infiltrate the enemy camp (maybe at higher levels, not now) and assassinate one of the evil leaders. Big morale boost for your army, big morale dip for theirs.

Poisoning the enemy food supply is always a good idea. If the good empire has sufficient reserves of resources, this goes hand in hand with scorched earth tactics. Once it looks like the enemy will cross the river / capture the fortresses, you retreat further, poison your wells, burn your crops, herd off / kill your livestock, all the good stuff. A barren landscape filled with livestock carcasses will also harm enemy morale.

Hold choke points for as long as possible. Abandon them when you must, but be sure to inflict as much harm as possible. Preferably you would focus on killing clerics and mages. It's bad if you incapacitate 400 warriors just to have them healed by their clerics the next day.

The geography of the home terrain is especially important, particularly the part between the river and Guardian's Valor citadel. Hopefully it's not all plain countryside. Forests hide your armies and let them perform quick and bloody raids. Mountains let you stage avalanches. Valleys may have dams that can be destroyed in an attempt to drown the invading army. Et cetera.

Compunded with this is the weather. If you have access to some druids (correct me if I'm wrong) you could do some serious harm to the enemy. Just imagine, the evil army is marching through heavy, drenching rain, it's cold, it's ugly, nobody's even talking, you can't see more than 20 meters in front of you, everybody's already in a bad mood, and BAM: your PCs just dropped a 60-foot boulder from the adjacent mountain on the baddies. Fun for them, no?

At higher levels, the PCs could infiltrate the enemy army and act as spies. Troop movements, attack plans, strategies, the whole shebang. Very useful in any confrontation.

That's it for now. Hope it helps.

 

[KrazyHades]

--Castle Design--

A great deal depends on how well-constructed the smaller forts and the large keep are. For example, attached is a very well-constructed castle's defenses. Note that there are ways to heal soldiers (clerics), inspire soldiers (bards), and deal with masses of troops (wizards, large crossbowman volleys, catapults, and ballistae. There are many layers of defense, many towers that can only be reached by descending to the ground from the nearby walls and then entering, etc...

The walls of a castle like this would be magically reinforced, the towers would be the centers of permanent Consecrate spells, the whole area would be under a permanent forbidden spell, and other things to deal with magical problems. The areas where important officers (like generals) would be protected from magical spying (both audio and visual). Along all the walls would be pots of boiling pitch and ignited naphtha. High crenelations would protect the crossbowmen from ranged assault. People on the lowest floors of the castle would listen for diggers undermining a section of the walls, and deal with them, perhaps with summoned earth elementals.

With a main castle like this, Pike would be able to hold off a huge army without a problem, for a great deal of time. Perhaps there are even enough clerics to feed part of the army, allowing it to hold out even longer under siege.


--Unconventional Defensive Strategies--

WEREBEAR DEFENSE
I have used this in previous campaigns, and it's always fun. Have soldiers of Pike voluntarily contract lycanthropy from werebears (which are always LG) that are enlisted in the army, and subsequently trained by the original ones how to control it (giving them a +2 circumstance bonus on shapechange checks). Imagine the shock an invading force could feel upon pouncing on a fort that looks like an easy conquest only to be faced with a brigade of Werebears!!

HIT AND RUN (with a twist!)
Outnumbered and outgunned armies can still manage to slaughter their enemies. The typical version of this would be to have archers mounted on light horses to pick off stragglers, always pulling back with their superior speed if a serious force comes to face them, only to hit at the point said force abandoned. To make things exciting, you could have more interesting creatures doing the raiding. Perhaps a small circle of druids trains cheetahs, velociraptors, packs of wolves, or some such, and gets them to run out, kill stragglers, and retreat. To make it even more interesting, perhaps these particular animals actually have the ability to rage 1/day, turning their fur blood-red.

MORE CLEVER USE OF DRUIDS!
A major tactic for a defending battalion accompanied by a druid (which, due to the presence of a large elven population in Pike, there are probably many) would be to lead enemy solders on a chase into some woods/forest/jungle and then have animated plants kill them (or restrain them until they can be killed).

WELL-PLANNED AMBUSHES
Perhaps Pike generals are partial to leading enemy forces through gullies and then dropping boulders on them from a above. Opposing general too smart for that trick? Perhaps it's really just a setup so that when the Evil Empire officer sends his troop along the lip of the canyon (rather than through it), they get attacked by a set of ballistae hidden behind a rough wall of horizontal logs. Just because an enemy sees through the FIRST trick doesn't mean there isn't another.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE
Rather than allowing it's own citizens and soldiers to succumb to a mind-numbing fear of the Evil Empire invaders, Pike should turn the tables. Assaults out of nowhere at random times during the day, illusion spells that create fake dragons and angels that seem to destroy other (illusionary) Evil Empire soldiers, trained engineers that can set up a quick simple catapult or ballista in an hour, to allow for even scarier ambushes. Loud ghost sound or occasional sound bursts to prevent enemy soldiers from sleeping. Maybe a ghost of an old general wants to do his share, and starts haunting Evil Empire camps. Spies or small groups of stealthy characters that destroy food and supplies, both in camps and in caravans on the way there could also help spread chaos and fear. Arrows painted black and fletched with red feathers (just for the scare value) and that are shot with the True Strike spell at Evil Empire officers or giants or other important things (perhaps the bowmen are the hippogriff-mounted elves you mentioned).

 

[KrazyHades]

Yah...nice to see that I got tons of responses after taking the time to write that post and draw that map