(If you are a player in the Parade of one hundred shadows campaign reading this for some reason, please turn back now)
For context, My players have been dealing with a variety of monstrosities that have been attacking their base city for unknown reasons. The attacks haven´t had particularly grave consequences as of yet, but the walls have been reinforced and equipped with heavy weaponry to prevent any further breaches. As of last session, the adventurers (4 level 3 players) were called by the adventurer´s guild to help fend off a huge rampage of monsters heading in their direction, and we left in a cliffhanger as, from the top of the 60 foot wooden wall, they watched as a huge stampede of beastly monsters rapidly approached.
This is the first siege encounter i´ve built, and I am looking for some tips and recommendations to make it fun and not accidentally kill everyone with the high cr monsters that are coming their way. In the section of the wall they´re defending, the players have two cannons that are about 60 or more feet away from each other, two modified ballistae that can be loaded, aimed and fired with a single action, turning a 20 foot area within range into difficult terrain instead of dealing damage, a ¨soulscreamer¨, which is a magic siege weapon that takes three actions in total to load, aim and fire, and that fires a the round after it was activated, casting a version of fireball that deals thunder damage in an area designated by the player who fired it, and a magic horn that will activate after the sixth turn of combat, for one minute giving the players extra attack, 50 temp hp, and the option to deal 2d12 force damage in a 20 foot sphere when they hit with an attack, triggering a wild magic surge in the sphere. And there´s also enough allied guards to fire the cannons and soulscreamer every turn. Now, I plan the monsters(All are mostrosities) to attack the walls (mostly mindlessly) in three waves, starting with 5 cockatrice and two carrion crawlers in the first, and ending with a gloomstalker, a gorgon and 4 giant striders in the third. Now, the problem is that I feel the players can easily breeze through the encounter, but at the same time, they´ll just die to two hits of the gloomstalker without the horn´s buffs, so i´m not really sure how to balance it to make it challenging but not deadly.
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(If you are a player in the Parade of one hundred shadows campaign reading this for some reason, please turn back now)
For context, My players have been dealing with a variety of monstrosities that have been attacking their base city for unknown reasons. The attacks haven´t had particularly grave consequences as of yet, but the walls have been reinforced and equipped with heavy weaponry to prevent any further breaches. As of last session, the adventurers (4 level 3 players) were called by the adventurer´s guild to help fend off a huge rampage of monsters heading in their direction, and we left in a cliffhanger as, from the top of the 60 foot wooden wall, they watched as a huge stampede of beastly monsters rapidly approached.
This is the first siege encounter i´ve built, and I am looking for some tips and recommendations to make it fun and not accidentally kill everyone with the high cr monsters that are coming their way. In the section of the wall they´re defending, the players have two cannons that are about 60 or more feet away from each other, two modified ballistae that can be loaded, aimed and fired with a single action, turning a 20 foot area within range into difficult terrain instead of dealing damage, a ¨soulscreamer¨, which is a magic siege weapon that takes three actions in total to load, aim and fire, and that fires a the round after it was activated, casting a version of fireball that deals thunder damage in an area designated by the player who fired it, and a magic horn that will activate after the sixth turn of combat, for one minute giving the players extra attack, 50 temp hp, and the option to deal 2d12 force damage in a 20 foot sphere when they hit with an attack, triggering a wild magic surge in the sphere. And there´s also enough allied guards to fire the cannons and soulscreamer every turn. Now, I plan the monsters(All are mostrosities) to attack the walls (mostly mindlessly) in three waves, starting with 5 cockatrice and two carrion crawlers in the first, and ending with a gloomstalker, a gorgon and 4 giant striders in the third. Now, the problem is that I feel the players can easily breeze through the encounter, but at the same time, they´ll just die to two hits of the gloomstalker without the horn´s buffs, so i´m not really sure how to balance it to make it challenging but not deadly.