You're the British military. Defend Avalon from my PCs.

[MaxKaladin]

I don't know if you use artillery to defend locations, do you? I thought it was only good for attack. I can see machine gun batteries, though.

Artillery can be used for defense by being used to bombard anyone who tries to attack the defenders. This is essentially what you see in the old WWI films of people trying to cross no-mans-land with artillery shells bursting everywhere. Artillery can also be used for area denial. In other words, you zero your batteries on whatever spot you want to keep people out of and wait for them to try to penetrate it. Then you give the order to fire and keep shooting until they leave the area or are all dead.

For your "commandos", I'd see if I couldn't get the SAS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Air_Service). They're among the best in the world, their role includes "Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW), Counter Terrorism (CT) and acting as a Quick Reaction Force (QRF)" and they're based less than 100 miles from the hill. These are extremely dangerous people who ought to be able to take your PCs and reduce them to carrion fairly easily.

If I were your defenders, I'd set up a three layered approach. First will be outposts on any roads or trails that serve to turn away the general public and warn of anyone who looks "suspicious". These should be checked up on fairly often so that taking one out will be discovered fairly quickly.

The second layer is a defensive perimiter that features fixed positions in a ring around the hill and the well with a view of the approaches to the perimiter AND which can see up the hill and fire upon anyone who has gotten past it. These positions should also have a clear view of the positions on either side of them so they can see and respond to an attack on their neighbors. There should also be patrols making the rounds of these positions to check up on them, to make crossing the spaces between the positions harder and to act as reinforcements in the event of attack. This should ensure your PCs can't get past the defensive perimiter without raising the alarm unless they can use magic to conceal themselves.

The final layer will be two groups of commandos. The first will have have set up an ambush that can target anyone who reaches the well. They should be concealed against normal vision using their conventional means but the illusion mage should create subtle illusions intended to shield the PCs from detection by nightvision and any magical sight they suspect the PCs should have. The attack magic specialist should also be here dressed as a commando so he won't stand out of the PCs can somehow detect them. Ideally, when the PCs get there they shouldn't spot the ambush because they're concealed both normally and magically. When they get into position to cast the spell, they should be cut down by a hail of bullets, grenades, attack spells and so forth.

The second group will be concealed near the tower at the summit (which is where I think the PCs need to go with the water) concealed in the same way. The weapon mage should be with this group. They should not be in the building itself (anticipating the old "fireball in the door to take out the defenders" trick). Rather, they should be watching the entrances. If there are a lot of potential entrances, pick the most likely one and the most unlikely one and boobytrap the rest with claymores. I think they're pretty quick to set up and few should be required so they should be possible on short notice. Note that this should not be the actual entrances (doors, windows) but the approaches so PCs carefully approaching an entrance to check for traps or defenders within will get hammered by a claymore. If the PCs approach either of the untrapped entrances, they should get ambushed from behind. If the PCs get in somehow, the two untrapped entrances can be used for the commandos to enter safely to take them from behind. The reason the building itself is not trapped is so the commandos can safely enter behind the PCs and attack them from behind if they manage to get in. The reason two entrances are not trapped is so that if the PCs get in one entrance and try to hold the door against the commandos there is a second entrance that can be used to enter and attack them.

In addition to this, I'd post a sniper team in the top of that tower on the hill and, if you have them, in various places outside the perimiter as someone suggested. The team in the tower should have assault weapons and plenty of grenades so that if the PCs try to barricade themselves in and hold off the rest of the commandos they can just start throwing grenades down to the ground floor and blow up any PCs holding the door. Another approach is to keep ropes for commandos to climb up if the PCs are holding the door (or the movement mage can carry them up, if possible). Troops from the tower can then take any PCs holding the doors from behind. Remember radios can coordinate all this.

I'd take the rest of my commandos and create one or more rapid reaction teams. If the movement mage can move several commandos around, he'll be with a team of commandos he can speed to wherever they're needed and any remaining commandos will be in a second group that will move normally. Otherwise they're all in one group that can be sent to the site of any attack as reinforcements. If the movement mage can't take anyone with him, he can be used to move around to scout and carry orders. In the event of disaster, he can escape to alert his superiors elsewhere so further measures can be taken.

If you have access to helicopters, have them patrolling. Good ones to have would have infrared and spotlights so they can spot anyone moving in the darkness and put a spotlight on them. The best would be attack helicopters with infrared and chain guns to turn the PCs into hamburger.

While the perimiter is being set up, the illusion guy should set up illusions to cover the snipers in addition to the ambushers. If he has illusions left, set up phantom patrols for the PCs to worry about. If he's feeling devious, he should cast some illusions designed to conceal people in random spots on likely approaches. The idea here is to simply slow down and confuse PCs who can sense his illusions by making them waste time worring about an illusion protecting a random spot. Knowing PCs, they'll invent all sorts of nightmares about these random illusions.

Finally, the spot where the water is to be used should be rigged with explosive charges. If all else is lost, someone can set off the charges and blast any PCs who make it that far. Alternately, they could have a plan to take the SAS into Avalon with them to pursue and kill the PCs.

That ought to challenge your PCs.

Edit to fix typos.

 

[painandgreed]

If I was the bad guys, I'd make an anonomous tip to one of the controled government officials about a possible terrorist plot to set off a dirty bomb at Glastonbury Tor, or that one is there. The controlled official will act on said info, giving them an official reason for the military to be there and gain aid of the local police. It's a little overkill for such a tip, but it will all turn out to be correct if fighting starts out and there will be little questions as to why the soldiers were there.

Set up rings of defence. Police with soldiers carrying guns to act as road blocks. They will stop all travellers and not let them get through. Anybody suspicous will be detained (for three days) for questioning. Of course the police and military will have as good of descriptions of the PCs as possible. For this layer of defence and later, remember that the first duty of a guard is to raise the alarm. If fighting breaks out, some of the soldier should notify all the others as well as normal offcials. Even if there aren't enough soldiers and police there now, once somebody starts calling "police officer down", more cops and soldiers will show up from the surrounding area with complete justification for being there. Make sure the police have cameras and such to record the PCs attack if they do such so it can be given to the authorities and make the PCs criminals for the rest of the game.

Next line of defence will be troops with guns and orders to shoot to kill, or at least stop anybody and shoot if they don't stop. IR and low light equipment and such. Perhaps some military dogs.

Last will be the commandos who will set up last ditch effort to stop anybody who attempts to enter the Tor. Claymores (or Brit equivilant) can be set up along the road and surrounding hill. Snipers from the Tor itself as well as a good locked door.

If you really want to get nasty, just have them request a US SPECTRE gunship from the US (again, a good reason to use terrorism excuse) if they don't already have their own. Nothing like a C140 cargo aircraft with 20mm vulcans, a 105 howitzer, and the best high tech surveilence gear money can buy in a plane that can just fly circles around the place and shoot at anything they want from miles away.

If you want to be even nastier, just have the bad guys set off a real dirty bomb on the site ASAP and contaminate the area with radiation or disease. It will take longer than three days to decontaminate the area and in the mean time, the place will be crawling with soldiers and police. Even if the PCs sneak past the guards, they'll still ahve to deal with the effects of the dirty bomb on themselves.

Lastly, if they do make it in to Avalon, see if it can be determined where they'll come out and hit them with an ambush.

 

[domino]

Something else, if you want to be subtle.

IR lights, and IR goggles on the troops. It's great illumination, but outside of the visual spectrum, so if they don't think about it, they'll think they're sneaking through the deepest darkness, when in reality, they'll be well and thoroughly illuminated.

 

[Morrus]

What tech is allowed? Could the military bring in satellite surveillance? Spotter helicopters with IR and other imaging scopes?

 

[Falkus]

they'll still ahve to deal with the effects of the dirty bomb on themselves.

You mean like a two percent higher chance of suffering cancer in their lifetime?

 

[Herobizkit]

Your easiest solution would be to create a Spec-Op "Anti-PC" unit of Elite NPC's. As simple as it seems, nothing bugs players more than fighting carbon copies of their characters.

Oh, and destroy the well so that the PC's can never enter Avalon again.

 

[painandgreed]

You mean like a two percent higher chance of suffering cancer in their lifetime?

Depends on what you can dope it with, but I'm sure that the bad guys will take that as an added bonus against the chracters rather than not. After all, it is only an excuse to to get their people in there to begin with. Assumeing the characters know about it, it could get a reasonable excuse for the illutioist to make an attack they might beleive. If they enter the area and begin to feel like they are getting sick, they might think they really are rather than because it is an illusion by one of the magic users. Or perhaps the magical attack guy can use it for cover or make the stuff that goes in the bomb so that it is really some sort of alchemical poison.

For that matter, there's always neat things to do with illusions. Use one to hide the chalice well and another a few feet away to make a tub of bath water appear to be the chalice well. Even if they've been there before, they might need to be really familiar with the area or consulting some topographical maps to determine they're not standing in the right spot when they collect the water. For that matter, just have the show up with an illusion that the well is dry.

 

[RangerWickett]

What tech is allowed? Could the military bring in satellite surveillance? Spotter helicopters with IR and other imaging scopes?

Yep, all that is fine.

The bad guys cannot destroy the Tor (or, like, nuke Avalon) because they need to use it later. They've done a bad spell that will let them fulfill their plans, but once their plans are complete they'll want to reverse the bad spell, which requires Avalon.

Now, you guys have provided some great ideas. I'm a little hesitant to bring in a huge amount of military involvement, even though the bad guys actually already have painted the PCs as terrorists. So it would make sense to have full military support, but I don't want it to be stupidly difficult for the PCs.

*grin* Quick side note. Two sessions ago, in an attempt to distract the PCs and keep them off the trail of the real plan, the main villain decided to play off the PC psychic's ability to see flashes of the future. He decided to have his teleportation mage break into nuclear missile silos and steal missiles. He figured the PCs would get wind of this and try to stop it, which would take them so far off in the wrong direction that he'd be safe to complete his plans.

What do the PCs do? They don't want to go into a military-guarded missile silo, so they play on their own notoriety and create a tape which they send to the media, claiming that they plan to attack missile silos. The military responds by upping its defenses, so the villain decides not to actually go through with his red herring plan. Weird circular logic, huh?


Anyway, back to the planning. The PCs do have some help and some powers that I haven't yet mentioned, mostly because they're the sort of things you can't tell a modern military unit to plan for. Oh, you can say, "They might have air support," but it's kinda hard to explain to soldiers that they're probably gonna get strafed by a dragon.

 

[MarkB]

In order to enter Avalon, you have to take water from the chalice well, bring it to the top of the hill, then cast a spell that only a few people in the world have access to. One of these people is a PC, the rest are all badguys.

Hmm.

Step one: Drain all water from the Chalice Well, and sequester it deep underground in a secret Bad Guys facility, at least three counties away.

Step two: Fill in the well with cement.

 

[green slime]

Don't forget that control of some parts of the "British Military" would include not only ground troops, but also access to the RAF. I want to see a dogfight between a Tornado ADV, a Harrier, and the dragon! Don't forget the modern battlefield allows grunts to rapidly call for aerial support.

Also, it makes sense to only lighly defend the larger surrounding area (see next point), and to have a powerful rapid reaction force, that can take on the PC's via helicopters, helilanding for an ambush once the PC's have made their presence in any area known.

British military in general are well liked in their own country, and with any sensible commander leading them, would be sure to use the good will to full extent. They haven't really had the time there to provoke much bad will! Put up posters everywhere and adverts on the local TV station warning about the PC's, with a reward for information.