Help with large-scale battle

[OchreJelly]

I'm starting to plan a session that involves the party defending an area against a massive orc attack. The players are 10th level and I plan to give them some npc defenders. They will have time to setup defenses as well (perhaps use some rituals like Earthen Ramparts, magic circles etc.). They are basically defending a strong-point in a mountain pass.

I want to keep things manageable since we typically have 4 hour play sessions. I want the attack to occur in waves, and possibly give the PCs some reprieve for a short rest. I was originally thinking about using like 50 orc drudges for the first wave, but that may be difficult to run efficiently. Then it occurred to me that maybe I could convert "lines" of infantry into swarms (similar to the zombie horde).

Has anyone else run a fight like this in 4E? Do you have any recommendations on how to keep things running smoothly? Likewise I want to throw the occasional curveball to get enemies behind their line if possible but I don't really have any good ideas atm.

 

[Oompa]

I've never ran a combat situation like this before, but the most tips i see are:

- Use minions
- Use one or two stronger monsters after minions
- Repeat and let the players take some rest between encounters..

Don't add much npc's otherwise everything will be all about management and not fun.. You could, if the pc's are in trouble let a small regiment of troops come in and save the pc's or let a wall collapse or something..

 

[Ryujin]

Think action movie; what goes on in frame and what is in the background. Make a series of individual encounters during each wave that apply to the PCs. The rest will be typical minion-on-minion violence. Perhaps during the first wave the PCs are subjected to a squad of minions, headed by a 'sergeant." The enemy leaders get word on where the greatest resistance is centred and ramp up attacks on the PCs, by sending them tougher opponents in subsequent waves.

The overall battle keys on how well the PCs do, when facing their own opponents. If they take heavy damage but beat all of their personal waves, then the defenders win, but are decimated in doing so.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, that's basically what I would do. Don't try to adjudicate NPC on monster combat, just describe what happens. Let the vast bulk of the monsters be minions, so if the PCs need to cut their way through to a certain area or stop the enemy from 'going over the wall' or whatever they can wade in and do it. The REAL opposition can then be the various non-minion elements of the attackers, which can be kept down to a fairly small number of appropriately tough monsters.

Try to make the critical turning point of the battle a small engagement which happens in a specific place. Maybe a few orcs try to blow a hole in a key wall or sneak into the fort by some kind of back door, or there is a traitor in the fort that will open the sally port and let some orcs in at a critical moment. Then the PCs can pretty much spend the battle dealing with THAT and you can rule that the rest of the battle is successful if they manage to pull off their part.

You could even work in a skill challenge aspect for that critical part. If the PCs succeed in the skill challenge, they figure out the orc plan or realize there is a traitor in time to try to foil his plan. If not then maybe the defense is breached and the PCs have to pull back into the tower and abandon the walls, at which point they can either become 'beseiged' and have to figure out how to escape, or there can be a climactic final assault at the entrance to the redoubt. At that point all the enemy minions just become spectators and the party has to beat this final (now very hard) encounter. If they do, then the rest of the orcs can be driven off fairly easily (all being minions anyway).

The various scenes in The Two Towers where Aragorn and co defend Helm's Deep makes a pretty good model for this kind of thing.

 

[OchreJelly]

thanks for the advice so far. I considered the 'action movie' approach but my concern is given the range players have at their disposal (I mean a ranger's long range is pretty long) they may try to exert influence on parts of the fight out of frame...

I like the idea of incorporating a skill challenge into it. I'm almost inclined to turn the out-of-frame parts into a skill challenge that can work concurrently with the fight. I'm not sure how that would work in practice but it's a thought. Maybe a target of opportunity presents itself each round out of frame...

I was originally thinking of treating the npcs as minions and just doing a 50-50 roll to see if they take out other minions on their turn but it may be easier to just make that part of the scenery.

 

[Ryujin]

If the Ranger wants to try and take out some of the "bit players", let him. It means that he won't be concentrating on the fight that really matters. He'll be throwing rocks into a lake; limited effect.

The idea of a skill challenge might work reasonably well in this case, if you applied AbdulAlhazred's idea. Throw a feint attack at the PCs with relitively weak foes, then the more powerful ones try to force the gate, have a spy let them in, etc.. From that point the characters have to realize that their opponents have suddenly become less dangerous (Perception or Insight), realize what might be going on (History or Insight), notice where the real danger is (Perception), then get there (using area powers or special movement to get there, Intimidation, Stealth...).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I agree, if PCs insist on hitting 'background' minions that are basically offstage they are just frittering away their actions. You could decree that if the party wants to expend a considerable amount of firepower on that, then it might give them some bonuses someplace at a later time, so it might be more a case of giving them a choice of roles to play in the battle, or providing them with a chance to optimize their use of time.

 

[OchreJelly]

**minor spoiler on trollhaunt module.

There's actually a pretty good battle "scene" that's composed of several encounters in that module. I think I will use that as a model. I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier. I may have the PCs use insight checks between encounters to see what part of the battle needs their help so they can move to that front. Thanks for the tips!