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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delphonso" data-source="post: 7176206" data-attributes="member: 6892015">Well, I can tell you some things to not do:I attempted to have my PCs participate in a large-scale battle and gave them battalions which would reflect their behavior. For example, our ranger (archer) had a group of about 50 archers. When he "attacked" he was rolling for the whole group. If he succeeded, then I'd describe the scene of him calling out the target, and arrows raining down on the enemies and roughly how many they saw die out (effectively their hitpoints.) This was just flavor and was in actuality, my 4 players fighting 5 npcs. It was a nice cover to a usual fight, but amplified some problems. Specifically, missing - since it meant 50 people all missed at the same time. Another time, I tried to place the PCs in the middle of the field during a skirmish. This one went a bit better, since they were trying to keep enemies off them as they moved to a different location. However, this left two or three players without anything to do. Since the enemies were coming endlessly, the spell-caster didn't feel like it was worth it to cast on them, and our heavily armored cleric couldn't keep up with everyone else and fight at the same time. Perhaps at 9th level they have more abilities to get away from these problems.My advice on some of these topics: First, you may wish to look at the game Mount and Blade: Warband, since it gives a great feeling for what a siege would be like from the ground (of course, not completely realistically.)Second, like everyone mentioned, make it smaller scale with important objectives. One way to get them involved in the ground battle is to have their first objective to be a side-entrance (think of the throwing Gimli scene at Helm's Deep). To get there, the PCs would need to rush through an ongoing battle. You might plan out a path and have the PCs rush through, slashing low-level enemies by the tens as they race to their goal. I have used mob-health in this before. Meaning multiple enemies share one health pool. Finally, I'd suggest they get offered some reason to help the Magocracy, and be given several choices in the form of encounters. Perhaps they're promised riches if the mages can resist the siege. As they rush along the walls, still unsure of their allegiance, they see an oil cauldron which could be poured down on the invaders, or broken backwards to pour on the town's guard - both parties are pushing on the gate below. Some things along those lines would make it less of a giant military battle, and more of a series of decisions in this military setting.</blockquote>

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