D&D General PCs raiding a city

[toucanbuzz]

I'm looking for inspiration or complications. There are plenty of pre-written adventures which deal with PCs defending a city during a siege, but there's seem to be none about they participating in the attack.

I defer to 3rd Edition's Red Hand of Doom. While it involved city defense, it directed the PCs to handle crucial moments as, effectively, the elite Seal Team 6 of the land. Based on their prior adventures, the difficulty of each scenario could be affected, including a dragon setting fire to buildings, hill giants pelting the city from afar with boulders, and an elite attack on a key structure. The module had a point system for how the battle would turn out, varying by what the PCs did both before and during the battle.

In a city raid, same thing. Beforehand, can they take any actions to infiltrate the city, discover and sabotage a sally door, recruit allies, prevent enemy allies from reinforcing the city? During the battle, the aforementioned "commando" style is best. It could be hold the sally door until we can reinforce, or penetrate the sewers and open a way in, or we've found their wizard's communication center, heavily guarded and warded, need the PCs to take it out, and so on, with perhaps a short rest in between "raids." Each one of these needs a failure option (e.g. you have to hold for 10 rounds to get troops through the sally door).

In any case, you should have a scenario in mind on where to go if the attack fails.

 

[Ancalagon]

I thank the OP for more details on the city.

What I don't really understand though is the giant attack. Would that cause the pseudo-Viking and the city to form an alliance against them (like say, a host of fiends showed up)? Would the Vikings think they are on their side? The logistics, the timing, the reactions, heck, the goal of the giants, it's hazy to me.

 

[FXR]

I thank the OP for more details on the city.

What I don't really understand though is the giant attack. Would that cause the pseudo-Viking and the city to form an alliance against them (like say, a host of fiends showed up)? Would the Vikings think they are on their side? The logistics, the timing, the reactions, heck, the goal of the giants, it's hazy to me.

Initially, the not-vikings would indeed believe the giants are on their side, but would soon find out that the giants aren't really on anybody side.

Here's a bit of background context on giants in my campaign:

Giants are the twisted descendants of the Progenitors, a mysterious star-faring people who first settled the world and edicted its natural laws (such as the sun sets in the West, there are four seasons, etc.). At some point, some sort of virus afflicted many Progenitors and twisted them. The ones most afflicted by the virus became the hill giants, the ones least afflicted became the storm giants, while the others are somewhere in the middle. The non-afflicted Progenitors killed many of those, but not all of them, as the world is a pretty vast place and some flew very far away. Others were also put in statis, because the Progenitors believed they could create a cure, but they never found one. Some probably woke up centuries or millenia afterwards.


Before leaving the world, the Progenitors populated it with a few dozens of humans and use a device to extract faeries from the Feywild, give them a mortal physical body and binded them to the physical world. The Progenitors than told the elves that they could become faeries again and reenter the Feywild, only when humans would have reach their destiny. Initially, the elves tought it meant that humans had to thrive and become a great civilization found on great values, but things went south after a few centuries.

The frost giants (like all giants) believe themselves to be Progenitors and, as such the real masters of the world. Weren't they the ones who settled it first?

It's quite probable that, during the early days, the giants had a couple of clashes with the elves, and didn't understand what were humanoids and how did they get there? It's a bit like you taking a nap or leaving to fetch something at the corner store and finding your house occupied by a family of four, who painted the walls and who sincerely believe they have always lived there.

 

[Ancalagon]

Initially, the not-vikings would indeed believe the giants are on their side, but would soon find out that the giants aren't really on anybody side.

So how soon? 5 minutes after showing up, or a week after the siege?

 

[FXR]

So how soon? 5 minutes after showing up, or a week after the siege?

More like 5 minutes after showing up. Being flatten by a big rock does sometimes lead to that

 

[Ancalagon]

Ok. I still don't understand the plan of the person who freed the giants. These giants have been asleep for several centuries, they are woken up, agree to travel to a specific local and attack the enemies and allies of this giant-freer. How does he control them? What's his end goal, what is he (she) trying to achieve?

 

[Redwizard007]

Ok. I still don't understand the plan of the person who freed the giants. These giants have been asleep for several centuries, they are woken up, agree to travel to a specific local and attack the enemies and allies of this giant-freer. How does he control them? What's his end goal, what is he (she) trying to achieve?

Not OP, obviously, but I get the impression it the classic "villain expects to have some power over his new allies. Villain is wrong. Chaos ensues."

 

[FXR]

Exactly as Redwizard007 said, my original plan was that he doesn't believe the the giants will serve him, but more likely that the giants will accept the non-vikings as henchmen. Of course, the giants care not about such a thing.

It's a classic case of some mortal messing with forces he doesn't understand, a bit like many sorcerers in Conan stories. The only (very slight twist) is that the jarl has absolutely no magical power whatsoever.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Here's more context.

The city is a rather big one for the setting, about as populous as medieval Paris. The elves themselves are about 200 hundred adults and form the aristocracy, but most of the citizenry (and military) are humans, gnomes and a few dwarves. It's a city normally open for commerce, located on a coastline, so it's not hidden by any mean. It is, however, well-fortified.

snipped for space

Normally, even if with all this, the elves would win. However, one jarl has decided that neither elves and humans are fitted to rule the northern fjords and has thrown its lot with the frost giants, which he has awaken from their enchanted sleep. The giants are numerous and the elves aren't familiar with them. The involvement the frost giants is the real game changer here.

So you've throw in the term 'raid' (a quick in & out attack for loot), and 'seige' (an operation to reduced a fortified position by attrition and starvation coupled with extensive engineering operations which will takes weeks, and up to years).

Which is it?

 

[Bawylie]

Complications.
the elven defenses are naturalistic. They deploy walls of thorns, turn the ground underfoot to waist high mud, rain down on siege fires and torches, and spread fog in which they move their forces.

Your battlefield needs a flowchart for organizational purposes. Some of the defenses are refreshable - but dealing with the wall of thorns for the day should buy a day’s worth of time.
You need a progress tracker for relative vulnerability of the city. At the lowest level, individuals can sneak in. At mid level, parties of say 20 can get in, and at highest level, major forces can advance. The game becomes pushing the tracker far enough every day to advance forces. (Don’t tell them there’s a tracker - just use it in conjunction with your flowchart and describe how open to attack or well defended the city is). Individuals can gather intel. Parties can accomplish limited objectives. Armies and major forces can drop the city’s effective HP. The tracker moves up and down during the day and every day. Generally speaking, say you have 6 or 7 levels on your tracker with 2, 4, and 6 as specific levels of vulnerability. so individuals at 2, parties at 4, and armies at 6. Every day, the elves have enough magic power to give themselves a +4 at the start of the day. Therefore, if the players push them to 6 and advance an army, the next day the elves can get back to 2 to start. That’ll be enough of a day to day dynamic.

I think you also need the city’s HP. Another tracker perhaps with another 7 levels. Every time the players get an army in, the city takes 1 damage. I imagine they surrender if they take 7 damage (representing casualties of 1/3 to 1/2 their fighting forces and 1/5 to 1/4 of citizen casualties. Alternatively, if they can kill or capture the 200 elves, the city can fall (perhaps something parties can do if they infiltrate properly).

So you have plenty of obstacles to deal with and a changing battlefield, a couple of objectives to pursue, and a simple flowchart with a couple of ratings to keep track of. Maybe write a description of each what each level looks like in the game world, so you can say things like “the thorn wall collapses and the city is vulnerable. There’s time and space to advance your armies” instead of “well that’s six, so your armies come in and do a point of siege damage. Ok next day.”