Hi guys, my party (now level 16) have finished all I had planned for my campaign, but they want to take it further. I decided that I could take my until now discarded War plotline to extend the game, but I'm having trouble.
The party is allied with a southern kingdom (Ulding), and a war is going to break out between them and a northern empire (Kelum). I want the party to defend the capital from an advancing army, but I'm not quite sure how I would run this. Can anyone offer some advice on this? If it matters at all, the party consists of a Totem Warrior (Bear, Elk, Eagle), a Moon Druid (who doesn't like to wildshape anymore) and an Eldritch Knight (with some extra spells from a powerful magic item).
Similarly to running a party through attacking a fortress, I’d say find some useful side mission for them to be part of. The party shouldn’t be on the walls firing arrows at the bad guy. Something like, have them fight off the dragon the attackers have allied with, and they need to do it fast before the dragon kills foot soldiers and smashes a hole in the wall. Or the party is sent out after high priority targets, like killing the enemy general. Or sent to cut enemy supply lines. Give them missions that can have a tangible impact on the assault, without trying to get into the mass combat of the assault.
Similarly to running a party through attacking a fortress, I’d say find some useful side mission for them to be part of. The party shouldn’t be on the walls firing arrows at the bad guy. Something like, have them fight off the dragon the attackers have allied with, and they need to do it fast before the dragon kills foot soldiers and smashes a hole in the wall. Or the party is sent out after high priority targets, like killing the enemy general. Or sent to cut enemy supply lines. Give them missions that can have a tangible impact on the assault, without trying to get into the mass combat of the assault.
Thats a nice advice.
It's wierd for powerfull guys as a party of 16th level PCs to be at some army line. Let the mass struggles for regular soldiers and keep the "best weapons" of the army for more important tasks. Remember that if the southern empire have somone like the one's in the party aligned to them into the war, the northern empire may know this and must have some card on its sleeve to decide to keep the advancemento to siege the city (also, if its going right to the capital than taking strategic points in the borders they must have a great plot, cause the capital should be an well defended site).
As your party seem's to have more combat roles than infiltrations or puzzles, so I would suggest something similar to that ones.
Siege Weapon:
Pick some secret siege creature aligned with the northern empire to be like a boss encounter (it can be the dragon but it can be anything challenging to the party that otherwise would make a win for the Ulding). You can put the players in strategic locations to deal with that creature without having to be involved with the armies. Maybe the Ulding have a main force of discartable soldiers attacking the gates to keep the city defenses busy while a special force are going by the other side with some siege monster to infiltrate the walls (or docks, or whenever you feel its a wickness for the defenses).
Destroy Enemies Morale:
Pick some boss that are commanding the Ulding armies and send the party to deal with it to weaken the attackers morale. It could be some Deva, Archmage, maybe even a Lich that are an important guy sided with the Ulding. Or homebrew a commander soldier as an high level char.
You can railroad the party to infiltrate sneakly to the enemies quarters far from the struggle where they just watch their soldiers advancement or you can make them as field commanders.
But if you focus on infiltrate enemy lines one tip I would heve you is to put them out of the armies struggle. Keep track for hundreds or of soldiers could make encounters too slow and boring for the players, so if you do, one thing I already made and work well is to narrate the big struggle as it happens around the party, but keep only players and some challenging foes as involved in the encounter track and initiative order, as they have focus only on that targets. You can also put some squads of soldiers in the row, but don't use too much and if you make them as "swarm creatures" would be better to have a good flow between rounds.
Call for Reinforcement:
You can make the threat a big deal for the city so some general or lieutenant must ask the help for the players to convince somone elso to get involved into the war. Maybe there's a giants village arround, that is neutral with the politics. So the party must come to parley and convince those dudes to join the southern empire in the war but the giant chief want's them to kill some chalanging creature (as a dragon, a nagpa, a storm giants leader from a rival tribe, whatever you feel that fits).
Legendary Item:
Maybe the nothern empire have a important item that put them at advantage in the war. It could be a legendary weapon wield by a northern champion or a magic relique keeped by the commander into its quarters. So the party must steal or destroy that item in order to put an end on the war. It could be made an encounter just like the destroying morale one.
Before you can run this, you need to work out a lot of world details so that a war in a magical world actually makes sense.
You need to have an idea about -
1) How much magic is present in the world. How common are wizards/clerics and other spellcasters? How common are all the other classes? Is the army made up of trained commoners or a mass of first level fighters or do you create a stat block for a soldier?
2) Do armies and kingdoms have alliances with monsters and monstrous races? Could the city call on elves or dwarves for support? Can the opposing kingdom do that? Can BOTH of them do that? Opposing kingdoms at war doesn't necessarily mean one is good the other evil ... or that one is right and the other wrong.
3) Depending on how common high level adventurers are - the role the PCs would play in such a battle would vary. If they are suited to it, the PCs could command sections of the army and you could have a mechanism where platoons/companies/divisions of troops clash and casualties/win/loss is determined. There are systems like that out there. You could also have missions/tasks that the players could undertake to improve their die rolls during the battle or to help ensure successes. Build fortifications, build traps, hire mercenaries, hire magical support, go on a quest to form an alliance with some group, go on a a quest to prevent the opponents from making alliances, try to disrupt the opposing trade routes and supply lines ... there could be a substantial campaign just leading up to the battle for the capital. In addition, you could make it so the character actions might be able to prevent or deflect the war in some way depending on how much your players might like intrigue and whether there are some interesting twists you could come up with.
Either way, the first step is to fill in some of the details in your own mind about how your world works and how a war would go - whether it is dominated by mundane soldiers or magic for example - then you can create tasks for the PCs within that context.
Before you can run this, you need to work out a lot of world details so that a war in a magical world actually makes sense.
You need to have an idea about -
1) How much magic is present in the world. How common are wizards/clerics and other spellcasters? How common are all the other classes? Is the army made up of trained commoners or a mass of first level fighters or do you create a stat block for a soldier?
2) Do armies and kingdoms have alliances with monsters and monstrous races? Could the city call on elves or dwarves for support? Can the opposing kingdom do that? Can BOTH of them do that? Opposing kingdoms at war doesn't necessarily mean one is good the other evil ... or that one is right and the other wrong.
3) Depending on how common high level adventurers are - the role the PCs would play in such a battle would vary. If they are suited to it, the PCs could command sections of the army and you could have a mechanism where platoons/companies/divisions of troops clash and casualties/win/loss is determined. There are systems like that out there. You could also have missions/tasks that the players could undertake to improve their die rolls during the battle or to help ensure successes. Build fortifications, build traps, hire mercenaries, hire magical support, go on a quest to form an alliance with some group, go on a a quest to prevent the opponents from making alliances, try to disrupt the opposing trade routes and supply lines ... there could be a substantial campaign just leading up to the battle for the capital. In addition, you could make it so the character actions might be able to prevent or deflect the war in some way depending on how much your players might like intrigue and whether there are some interesting twists you could come up with.
Either way, the first step is to fill in some of the details in your own mind about how your world works and how a war would go - whether it is dominated by mundane soldiers or magic for example - then you can create tasks for the PCs within that context.
This is some good advice. Thankfully, a lot of this has already been fleshed out by 11 levels worth of game in this world already
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Hi guys, my party (now level 16) have finished all I had planned for my campaign, but they want to take it further. I decided that I could take my until now discarded War plotline to extend the game, but I'm having trouble.
The party is allied with a southern kingdom (Ulding), and a war is going to break out between them and a northern empire (Kelum). I want the party to defend the capital from an advancing army, but I'm not quite sure how I would run this. Can anyone offer some advice on this? If it matters at all, the party consists of a Totem Warrior (Bear, Elk, Eagle), a Moon Druid (who doesn't like to wildshape anymore) and an Eldritch Knight (with some extra spells from a powerful magic item).
Similarly to running a party through attacking a fortress, I’d say find some useful side mission for them to be part of. The party shouldn’t be on the walls firing arrows at the bad guy.
Something like, have them fight off the dragon the attackers have allied with, and they need to do it fast before the dragon kills foot soldiers and smashes a hole in the wall.
Or the party is sent out after high priority targets, like killing the enemy general. Or sent to cut enemy supply lines.
Give them missions that can have a tangible impact on the assault, without trying to get into the mass combat of the assault.
Thats a nice advice.
It's wierd for powerfull guys as a party of 16th level PCs to be at some army line. Let the mass struggles for regular soldiers and keep the "best weapons" of the army for more important tasks. Remember that if the southern empire have somone like the one's in the party aligned to them into the war, the northern empire may know this and must have some card on its sleeve to decide to keep the advancemento to siege the city (also, if its going right to the capital than taking strategic points in the borders they must have a great plot, cause the capital should be an well defended site).
As your party seem's to have more combat roles than infiltrations or puzzles, so I would suggest something similar to that ones.
Siege Weapon:
Pick some secret siege creature aligned with the northern empire to be like a boss encounter (it can be the dragon but it can be anything challenging to the party that otherwise would make a win for the Ulding). You can put the players in strategic locations to deal with that creature without having to be involved with the armies. Maybe the Ulding have a main force of discartable soldiers attacking the gates to keep the city defenses busy while a special force are going by the other side with some siege monster to infiltrate the walls (or docks, or whenever you feel its a wickness for the defenses).
Destroy Enemies Morale:
Pick some boss that are commanding the Ulding armies and send the party to deal with it to weaken the attackers morale. It could be some Deva, Archmage, maybe even a Lich that are an important guy sided with the Ulding. Or homebrew a commander soldier as an high level char.
You can railroad the party to infiltrate sneakly to the enemies quarters far from the struggle where they just watch their soldiers advancement or you can make them as field commanders.
But if you focus on infiltrate enemy lines one tip I would heve you is to put them out of the armies struggle. Keep track for hundreds or of soldiers could make encounters too slow and boring for the players, so if you do, one thing I already made and work well is to narrate the big struggle as it happens around the party, but keep only players and some challenging foes as involved in the encounter track and initiative order, as they have focus only on that targets. You can also put some squads of soldiers in the row, but don't use too much and if you make them as "swarm creatures" would be better to have a good flow between rounds.
Call for Reinforcement:
You can make the threat a big deal for the city so some general or lieutenant must ask the help for the players to convince somone elso to get involved into the war. Maybe there's a giants village arround, that is neutral with the politics. So the party must come to parley and convince those dudes to join the southern empire in the war but the giant chief want's them to kill some chalanging creature (as a dragon, a nagpa, a storm giants leader from a rival tribe, whatever you feel that fits).
Legendary Item:
Maybe the nothern empire have a important item that put them at advantage in the war. It could be a legendary weapon wield by a northern champion or a magic relique keeped by the commander into its quarters. So the party must steal or destroy that item in order to put an end on the war. It could be made an encounter just like the destroying morale one.
Before you can run this, you need to work out a lot of world details so that a war in a magical world actually makes sense.
You need to have an idea about -
1) How much magic is present in the world. How common are wizards/clerics and other spellcasters? How common are all the other classes? Is the army made up of trained commoners or a mass of first level fighters or do you create a stat block for a soldier?
2) Do armies and kingdoms have alliances with monsters and monstrous races? Could the city call on elves or dwarves for support? Can the opposing kingdom do that? Can BOTH of them do that? Opposing kingdoms at war doesn't necessarily mean one is good the other evil ... or that one is right and the other wrong.
3) Depending on how common high level adventurers are - the role the PCs would play in such a battle would vary. If they are suited to it, the PCs could command sections of the army and you could have a mechanism where platoons/companies/divisions of troops clash and casualties/win/loss is determined. There are systems like that out there. You could also have missions/tasks that the players could undertake to improve their die rolls during the battle or to help ensure successes. Build fortifications, build traps, hire mercenaries, hire magical support, go on a quest to form an alliance with some group, go on a a quest to prevent the opponents from making alliances, try to disrupt the opposing trade routes and supply lines ... there could be a substantial campaign just leading up to the battle for the capital. In addition, you could make it so the character actions might be able to prevent or deflect the war in some way depending on how much your players might like intrigue and whether there are some interesting twists you could come up with.
Either way, the first step is to fill in some of the details in your own mind about how your world works and how a war would go - whether it is dominated by mundane soldiers or magic for example - then you can create tasks for the PCs within that context.
This is some good advice. Thankfully, a lot of this has already been fleshed out by 11 levels worth of game in this world already