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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Switchblade" data-source="post: 3906657" data-attributes="member: 56246">Unless you want your PC's to sit in the castle twiddling their thumbs waiting to see which side dies of dysentery first you should look at how you want your attackers to try to get into the castle.  Only then do you need worry about what the attackers are.  Are there going to be sappers trying to undermine the walls?  Archers with mantlets keeping the defenders pinned down.  Trebuchets battering the wall.  Or the dirrect assault with battering ram and ladders for those to whom life is cheap.  Once you have the style you can taylor the attackers to fit.This can also lead on to what the PC's can do, sallys to destroy the baggage train to break the siege, burn the siege tower/trebuchet or counter mine the tunnels.Can the attackers sustain heavy losses?  Do they have time to wait out the castle?  Are they an organised force with pickets or a rabble who fail to post sentries?  Ask yourself these questions and the rest will take care of itself.You may want to look in detail about the castle and the area.  Few castles were build in the open, most were unassailable on all sides, using cliffs, ravines, rivers or lakes.    They usually held the highest ground as well, only truely huge castles were ever built in valleys.  Where it is will affect the battle greatly and affect options both to attacker and defender.  Once you have the general overview then fill in the details, what magic is available to each side (create food/water pretty much knackers a siege, but does the other side know that?) and how can each side use that.  Illusion can be far more usefull than a fireball for example, distracting defenders to make sallys against illusionary siege engines, hiding damage to the walls etc.  Are there any "specials" that can bypass historical defences such as flight, etherial or teleport?  Specials are just the thing to give PC's something to do, from etherial assasins trying to take out PC casters while they rest to leading sallys to remove machines.  I would leave the rank and file as a backdrop to the game rather than having the PC plow through waves of attackers though, leave that to the NPC defenders.Hmm, I seemed to have waffled on longer that I intended, ho hum.</blockquote>

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