Sacking a City

[Reynard]

In my Pathfinder campaign, the PCs paved the way for the seige and eventual sacking of a major city by assassinating the powerful priest who ruled it. It is a long and convoluted story, but the end result is an army of Saxon hobgoblins taking the last Roman city on Britannia to keep them from pillaging the fertile south.

The PCs got in, performed the assassination and got out, losing a major magic item in the process (A dwarven thrower wielded by the elven priest of the hobgoblin god -- don't ask). They want to go back in to find it, and that player has also expressed interest in doing some general looting while there.

What I am looking for are some ideas on how to effectively run a "pillage and loot" session. I must say, in all the 25+ years I have been DMing, I have never had PCs run rampant through a falling city trying to stuff their pockets with gold and jewels.

So, do I build random encounter and/or loot tables and let them spend whatever amount of time they like? Do I create a mini-adventure they may or may not be interested in? I am kind of at a loss.

 

[ruemere]

Start with a series of framed scenes. The best way to impress the mood onto characters is always through strong visuals.

The framed scenes should be short and self-contained.

Then just prepare a few random encounters, add several armed groups to the area to keep players on their toes and, assuming there are no further story bits to use, just roll with it.

Regarding the framed scenes: think Pluton, Saving Private Ryan and about any picture portraying total and excessive damage dealt to common folk and their property.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[kitsune9]

I did something similar to a dead city that had to be fled in a fairly hasty way because there was a chaos taint that was spreading throughout the city. Here was my step-by-step process for looting the city:

1. Take your city and divide up it by sections like placing it on a hex grid or something. This determines the maximum number of areas for the PC's to go around stuffing their pockets.

2. For each section of the city determine the maximum amount of wealth the PC's will be able to collect should they literally search door-to-door. For example, if you have a slum area, the PC's will find 150 gp, but if they go into a noble's area, they can find 1,500 gp

3. Define the types of actions the PC's can do in each hex and specify the amount of time it will take. Here's what I did:

a. Travel. The PC's just move and explore through this hex just to get somewhere else. Roll for % for a random encounter, but they collect no gold. Moving through this district takes minimal time. If there is a planned encounter here, it is automatically triggered
b. Hastily Explore. The PC's pick the most interesting places in the hex and give them a look through. They will only manage to find 20% of the max gold in this hex and automatically run into the planned encounter with a normal chance for a random encounter on top of it. The time spent in this hex is dependent upon how much area there is to cover, but I had a small city so this was eight hours of exploration. If you have a large city, you'll want to increase that time.
c. Thoroughly Explore. The essentially "take 20" on the hex. They will yield the maximum gold to be found for this hex. They will automatically trigger the planned encounter and roll for random encounter for each day spent. Now I didn't do the 20 times the Hastily Explore option (I did three times), but you're well within your right to have the PC's spend 20 times (or less or longer) if they want to ransack every hut, building, and stall in the hex. They will also bring a lot of attention to themselves as they are constantly spending time in a ruined city.

4. Develop planned encounters for certain areas. As part of the risk/reward for exploring and looting, have certain areas of your city with planned encounters. These are monsters or hazards that the PC's have to overcome for trying to earn "free gold".

5. Develop random encounter tables for monsters/situations and extra treasure. As the PC's explore each hex or section, they run the risk of triggering a random encounter, but these encounters could be monsters, friendly or injured NPC's, or other situations. Also, in addition to the potential max gold, you can roll for a random treasure too. How much of extra mundane / magic items of stuff is up to you.

A couple of notes though:

The first is that most of the gold yield is cash. If the PC's are also looting for mundane stuff like armor and weapons, then it's up to you to determine how much of that is also around as well. For me, I had placed it at three times the maximum gold yield; however, I wanted the PC's to show me how they were going to carry it and secure it, because if they couldn't manage to do both, it would be stolen or gone.

The second is that if the PC's are spending a lot of time in a ruined city, then they need to figure out how they are handling issues of food and water. Exploring a city takes considerable amount of time so food, shelter, and water are fairly important.

The last is assessing risk with reward. If you have a mundane city, then the gp yield should be fairly low with low-level encounters and probably not worth the time if your PC's are high level. However, if this city has a reputation of being a place of great power, fierce evil denizens, terrible magics, then the cash yield and monster placement should be higher. For example, in the Forgotten Realms setting, Myth Drannor was a tough place for mid-level adventures and Narfell was a challenge for higher level adventures.

Have fun!

 

[NewJeffCT]

Even though you're running Pathfinder, I might go for an extended skill challenge, as well as some narrative on your part, as well as a few planned encounters thoughout the city = as well as some planned "random" encounters (i.e., a group of city defenders rally right near the PCs for a last stand...and, just the the opposite, the friendly besieging forces hear rumors of a last group of holdouts and ask the PCs to help them quash it; maybe a young knight is having trouble keeping his men in line? Maybe the players see some of the supposed good guys attempting to take advantage of/rape some women? )

But, use the skill rolling (Perception, Tracking/Survival, etc) to find the lost magic item, but also to avoid potential encounters - while the PCs may be friendly with the besieging forces, in the chaos surrounding the fall of the city and the men running pell-mell to loot the place, it's every man (and woman, dwarf, elf, hobgoblin, etc) for themselves.

From there, I would go with a few planned encounters, as I had mentioned above.

For each section of the city the players enter, describe the scene about them - the chaos, the smoke, fire, screaming, etc. After that, once the players get through a few successful skill checks, allow them to find some treasure, be it gold, jewels, magic items or whatnot. From there, maybe some clues as to where to find the lost magic item as well.

 

[Lanefan]

Saxon Hobgoblins - I like your game already!

As for the looting, all I can suggest is keep your wits sharp and your dice handy; as I've found in past situations like this it's just plain easier to have a vague idea of what's where in the city (major enemies including competing looter gangs, traps including unstable buildings, major loot if any) and then just wing it based on where the party decides to go.

If you plan out the city in detail, it's an ironclad guarantee the party will head straight for the one area you didn't think they'd go to and thus didn't fully flesh out...

Lanefan

 

[Scott DeWar]

As for finding the dwarvin thrower, might i suggest a skill challenge?

someone has found it and the party or evin high priest of the hobgoblin diety that wants it back finds it gone f4rom where it was. The dc should not be easy, more on the level of challenging. more then the average success needed, and so on and such forth. some notes to help with:
At will inspired 4e.com

is this artical: How To Make A Skill Challenge Fun, Part 1.
with questions such as: how do i run it and comments such as: Skill Challenges are About Actions, Not Skills.

Now i know that this is 4e, and if you are not running 4 e, I have seen it used more then once in Pathfinder, with good success. It is transferable technology.

Obsidian skill challenge is what i am thing of, by the way.

 

[Reynard]

Thanks all. I think I will go with a relatively "rules light" hex-crawl with some randomness. The city is the last bastion of the fantasy Romans, with war mages and animated ballista -- not to mention monsters loosed from beneath the coliseum -- so encounters can be interesting.

As to the thrower, it isn't there. On the upside, though, the Inquisitor will think the assassins were dwarves.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Let me get this right .. .. ..
an Elf
who is the high priest of the hobgoblins
did something that got hte dwarves blamed?
Wow. that is conva-loot-ed.

 

[ruemere]

Here is a semi-relevant thought:

There is a great game called Hot War by Contested Grounds Studios.
The premise: you're playing a governments-sponsored survivor in a post-apocalyptic London of 60s.

While this may not be of immediate help to you, the advice on portraying freeform adventure flow (see my previous post) is taken straight from there. The setting of pace, describing scenes in a form of still frames and portrayal of a city which crashed, burned and is barely alive is simply too exquisite to pass.

(free preview)

Several still frames to offer to your players:
- a military group is executing group of commoners for stealing someone else's property
- local undertakers are digging a long and shallow pit in order to store the dead
- several exotic animals escaped care of an aristocrat. As they are domesticated, they are not afraid of players and attempt to gain their favor to get food (inspired by Emil Kusturica's Underground)
- a group of commoners is holding a frantic and hectic wedding party, inviting passers by for a bout of drunken revelry
- a few old folks stare dejectedly from 2nd floor windows, seemingly oblivious of war
- a crowd is lynching a group of immigrants, to take revenge for the war


Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Reynard]

Let me get this right .. .. ..
an Elf
who is the high priest of the hobgoblins
did something that got hte dwarves blamed?
Wow. that is conva-loot-ed.

Sort of. The character is an elf (in my setting the elves come from "Ireland" and are any PCs are escaped slaves of the "Romans") but the PCs found a Dwarven Thrower/Belt combo which he took. He got a " Saxon" hobgoblin cleric cohort later, and eventually took a level of cleric in a "Saxon/Norse" deity ("Loki").

In the most recent session, they assassinated the "Roman" high priest. During this process, the Dwarven Thrower was lost. The PCs succeeded and then escaped without retrieving the weapon, but left no witnesses. Therefore, those investigating the killing have only the Thrower to go by, meaning the logical conclusion is "dwarf assassins".

Wow. That *is* convoluted.