Small Scale Siege Game

[Mathew_Freeman]

I have a day in which to game coming in up a couple of months time, and I want to play some 4e with some friends. It's going to be a one-off siege game.

The set up is like this - the PC's are old heroes, sent to guard a pretty worthless keep in front of a narrow mountain pass whilst the real army goes and guards the major pass into the country. Wouldn't you know it, the enemy army pulls a surprise attack and ends up coming down the small pass, right into the throats of the PC's.

My plan is set up a single battle mat, with a wall down either long side and a small keep and tower combo in the middle. There will be a defensive wall spanning the pass on both sides of the keep, and a few buildings outside of that to reflect that a small community has sprung up around the keep in the peaceful years.

What I'm asking for is good ideas about what to throw at the party - I'm thinking of having them play around 15th / 16th level characters. Please suggest some decent monsters that might be in an army (no undead this time, thanks), or excellent events that might happen.

I'm thinking of a skirmish force to start with, as the enemy general expects to sweep the few pitiful defenders out of his way and move into the country beyond. When that fails, he'll send in regular infantry, before trying a flag of truce / ambush style trick, and finally an all-out assault.

The party will be waiting on reinforcements, so I'm going to be putting a "time-limit" on the monsters in terms of how long they'll fight before running away / seeing the reinforcements turn up.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Improvements?

 

[Pyrex]

Minions. Lots and lots of Minions.

Make the PC's plow through dozens of minions to get within striking distance of the enemy officers (easily identifiable because they're carrying, say Battle Standards) and/or Hero units (Huge Trolls who're going to knock the walls down).

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Minions. Lots and lots of Minions.

Make the PC's plow through dozens of minions to get within striking distance of the enemy officers (easily identifiable because they're carrying, say Battle Standards) and/or Hero units (Huge Trolls who're going to knock the walls down).

I'm thinking of a Fire theme now, so probably Azer minions. That flame-aura ability they have (take 5 fire damage if you start adjacent to 2 or more of them) works well for large groups of minions.

I'm also looking at flame lashers, a fire giant leader, a magma brute and possibly some salamanders.

 

[Quickleaf]

Sounds like a blast.

Some cool events might be: (1) Light a warning beacon (or destroy as a last resort) before the enemies reach it (if the enemies do they make a magical green fire which alerts traitors in the PCs' country to begin staging a coup). (2) Keep is lit on fire by saboteurs (maybe their families were enslaved by advancing army), and PCs need to fight fire while under siege. (3) Fleeing hinterlands villagers are pinned in by scouts and need rescuing...is it a trick to lure the PCs out of the keep?

You probably already have our map picked out, but there is a mountain pass flip-map made by paizo.

 

[Mark]

You probably already have our map picked out, but there is a mountain pass flip-map made by paizo.

http://paizo.com/store/gameAids/gamingMats/steelSqwire/v5748btpy8025