Wartime Battle missions

[Omegaxicor]

I have never had this sort of situation I am helping a friend DM and he has ripped the idea of The Defence of Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings into a situation (changing enough for it not to be a complete rip-off) but he can't decide what the player's should do in this situation. The party will level 3-5 and the campaign is low magic but if the players are in the army, they will all die horribly, but he wants them to affect the battle and not just watch it.

any ideas?

 

[Dozen]

Wow. Replicating the Battle of the Pelennor Fields... I don't envy you.
Well, in all honesty, they'd have never won that one if not for Pippin, Merry, Eowyn and the army of the dead. They were fighting against admittedly impossible odds, and Minas Tirith's structure, while in the strict defensive sense is very formidable(that is, if they lost too many troops to hold the largest level, they can fall back to the next one, prolonging the inevitable if nothing else) losing a level has negative inpact in both morale and resources, and once the first one is lost, they will be cut off from the outside world, save for some hidden paths in the mountains.
Aside from assassinating or bringing down the Witch King(Yeah.. good luck with that), you'll have to go for a number of small victories and backup plans the original party didn't think of or never bothered to try.

1. First and foremost, you'll need forces. Lots of them. Get as many a soldier to your side as you can. Dwarves, Elves, Ents, Halfings, Mountainers, Undead, Trolls, Haradrim, Dunlanders, even Orcs and Uruk-hai, anything you can pull off. Ensuring the Rohirrim arrive before the first level falls(if at all, but don't expect miracles) might be a nice boon as well.
2. Save those who fell in the original trilogy! For example, help the defenders of Osgiliath pull back! Next to all of them are hardened rangers, fighters and warriors, I'd say at least 4th level each; behind walls, those guys are killing machines compared to a bunch of 1st level suckers whose morale is down the drain. And at that...
3. Demoralize! The orcs are barely held in line(if you can refer to what they have as a "line"), hate their leader, pretty dumb, and generally would have preferred to stay at home with their families. Thus the most effective tactic against them is to piss them the hell off. It doesn't matter if they get angry at you or Sauron, you can easily abuse both. Eventually a fair portion of them will just desert or start to act on their own accord. Careful, they might have Barbarians.
4. Cut the supply lines from Mordor! You may have noticed the opposing army is huge - which means there is an even larger workforce to keep it in one piece, carry ammunition, housing, backup forces and weapons, possibly along with emergency rations in case they ran out of corpses to eat, and that's only the orcs; the Haradrim are obviously kept in better shape. I don't expect either to be any good at logistics, you'll have an easy time.
5. Don't let Denethor run that stupid mouth of his! It might be a good idea to steal his Palantir before Sauron sends him the magical equalient of propaganda; he might even be useful to a degree(again, don't expect miracles). If you can't, just knock him out, Gandalf-style, as soon as you can.
6. Protect the Gondorian trebuchets! Those were a powerful asset until the Nazgul destroyed them.
7. Tinker up new ways of mass destruction! Knowledge and Craft checks are your best friends. Why rely on magic when the real world is already ridiculous?
8. "Kill'em! Bone them! Cut them to bits!" Or let them surrender, whichever you preferred at that point.

 

[Omegaxicor]

wow, great points, I should point out that we aren't playing Lord of the Rings, just the scene but your points are still very useful and give me ideas I hadn't thought of, Knowledge and Craft are skills NOONE invests in unfortunately...

Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes (inventors and cannon operators), Halflings (Rogues and Assassins), good dragons (maybe, I think the player's have to get these and are running out of time), Eagles and possibly others
V
Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Ogres, Bugbears (possibly Undead but I don't think so) and Red and Black Dragons, possibly Green ones as well

now he has forces to take the place of The Army of the Dead but he hasn't told me the full story

now setting the Party missions during the battle is the problem but having them running through the hidden tunnels, ambushing Trolls because the basic army has no way of defeating their Regeneration, heading out under the battleground and disrupting supply lines (if you steal one shipment and then return to the castle the enemy must divert forces to defend shipments you have no interest in) I like the idea of defending the outer gate while it's defenders retreat to the main castle, increases morale of defenders

 

[Dozen]

Hmm... The castle is still on top of a mountain, is it not? Look around for tunnels and old mines. Maybe there are creatures in the Underdark who'd prefer you as a neighbour over orcs, giants and goblinoids, like Deep Dwarves, Drow, a Gloura or two, Kuo-Toans, etc.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Do you/the DM have access to Heroes of Battle? If so, there is a section titled "Rules of War" that discusses PC's actions in massive battle situations. Part of these rules focus on "Victory Points" as a way for PCs -- even low-level ones -- can affect the outcome of a battle. Among the options available are: Assisting allied troops, disrupting enemy communications, disrupting enemy supply lines, protecting various important points on the battlefield, etc.

I'd strongly suggest picking up a copy of that book if you are interested in running massive battles.

 

[Omegaxicor]

[MENTION=6698275]Dozen[/MENTION] The Castle is built close to a mountain but not built directly into one like Minas Tirith is but I like the idea of underground tunnels and neutral mobs

[MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION] I have never even heard of the book...I will see if the DM has a copy but I doubt it, do the rules basically summarize Star Wars Battlefront's style of battlefields filled with points that the player's must capture and gaining all of the points means you win? (and the points are easier to capture with high morale troops so reinforcing allies is important, as is compromising enemy morale)

 

[Jacob Marley]

@Jacob Marley I have never even heard of the book...I will see if the DM has a copy but I doubt it, do the rules basically summarize Star Wars Battlefront's style of battlefields filled with points that the player's must capture and gaining all of the points means you win? (and the points are easier to capture with high morale troops so reinforcing allies is important, as is compromising enemy morale)

It is a 3.5 Edition D&D book. I am not familiar with Star Wars Battlefront but what you wrote appears to be fairly similar. The Victory Point method detailed in Heroes of Battle allows the party to perform various activities which result in victory points. Near the end of the battle, these victory points are compared to a series of thresholds to determine how much the PC's actions affected the outcome of the battle. More victory points means a more decisive win for the PCs. (Though, failing to achieve the minimum threshold results in a lost battle for the PCs.)

 

[billd91]

We had a major war campaign arc many years ago that involved a number of missions for PCs to go on. In this case, it was a fairly global (or at least continental) war with a few different theaters of operation. We went at the campaign with multiple PCs who had all played in the campaign setting before. We'd form scratch groups of PCs and go out on missions. One involved rescuing some significant prisoners who were being held by the enemy forces. Another involved infiltrating the enemy's capital and taking out a major general. A climactic, near final one involved a quest to find and recruit a famous weaponmaster and his artifact weapon.

Obviously, not all of these are suitable for an impending siege but may serve as some inspiration. Strikes against the enemy leadership could still be performed, particularly if there are secret ways out of the city/fortress. Same with prisoner rescues.

 

[Omegaxicor]

So the DM needs to come up with a series of small objectives that the players should accomplish (not force them to just in case someone misunderstands) and the more of them that the players accomplish the more the battle goes in their favour (or atleast fewer casualties on their side)

Thank you both I will see what the DM thinks

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Be careful about it turning into a roll-fest. As I recall Heroes of Battle does say using averages or rolls for groups helps keep things manageable when you have large-scale battle.