Due to some creative use of polymorph my players arrived earlier than I had planned to a battle and landed in a castle under siege. Surrounded and outnumbered by an army of orcs. They have about 50 green troops inside the fort and over 100 orcs outside. The session ended as they arrived and assessed the situation - I think they intend to fight their way out.
I've never really worked with large combat before and I'm wondering if anyone has any tips for getting through this without mucking it up with loads of math.
Break up troops/orcs into smaller chunks, 5 in a team is my go to. This will minimize the amount of rolling needed.
Treat them similarly to swarms where X amount of damage reduces the team size by 1. Initiative is shared by the whole of the team.
Roll damage with Xd? +X and multiply X by the number of monsters in the team. example: Team has battleaxes which is 1d8. Damage modifier is +2. That would be 32 (5d8+10) The team takes heavy damage, loses 2 orcs, now it's 19 (3d8+6)
Have the players handle the troops inside the castle, same rules for the troops as per the Orcs.
Make sure, if you've added them, that the players know about the castle defenses such as Oil or if there's a barbican (kill box), and any other pertinent information that may help them strategically.
You could resolve the siege via story steps, if you have "planned" an outcome.
1. Step: orc attackers and castle defenders have a 80/20 chance of being victorious 2. Step: (social gameplay): Talking to the defenders (bard?), training green bowmen (ranger?), praying with the civilians (cleric?) will increase morale of the people => 70/30 chance, if sucessful 3. Step (exploration/PvE): Players fabricate defences, smuggle in supplies; poison enemy water supply or sabotage a siege engine => 60/40 chance, if successful 4. Step (combat): When the orcs try to breach the walls, the players do a section of the combat, like fighting the enemy war shaman or an elite force of orcs; depending how quick and decisive their win is (e.g. set up a limited amount of combat rounds) shift the "win/loss meter" in favour of defenders or attackers. 5. Step: resolve the siege with rolling the percentile dice three times: three wins for the orcs => the castle was taken, the players are captured by the orcish army; two wins by the orcs => the castle is taken, but the players and important NPCs could retreat and flee; two wins by the defenders => the orcs were defeated and half of them escaped; the castle was heavily damaged, some important died too; three wins by the defenders => the castle could ward of the orcs, their siege equipment was destroyed and only a few could escape to fight another day.
No large scale combat rules needed. Of course you don't have the experience of classical war gaming with moving troops around a table. It is a story driven approach.
Due to some creative use of polymorph my players arrived earlier than I had planned to a battle and landed in a castle under siege. Surrounded and outnumbered by an army of orcs. They have about 50 green troops inside the fort and over 100 orcs outside. The session ended as they arrived and assessed the situation - I think they intend to fight their way out.
I've never really worked with large combat before and I'm wondering if anyone has any tips for getting through this without mucking it up with loads of math.
Break up troops/orcs into smaller chunks, 5 in a team is my go to. This will minimize the amount of rolling needed.
Treat them similarly to swarms where X amount of damage reduces the team size by 1.
Initiative is shared by the whole of the team.
Roll damage with Xd? +X and multiply X by the number of monsters in the team.
example: Team has battleaxes which is 1d8. Damage modifier is +2. That would be 32 (5d8+10)
The team takes heavy damage, loses 2 orcs, now it's 19 (3d8+6)
Have the players handle the troops inside the castle, same rules for the troops as per the Orcs.
Make sure, if you've added them, that the players know about the castle defenses such as Oil or if there's a barbican (kill box), and any other pertinent information that may help them strategically.
You could resolve the siege via story steps, if you have "planned" an outcome.
1. Step: orc attackers and castle defenders have a 80/20 chance of being victorious
2. Step: (social gameplay): Talking to the defenders (bard?), training green bowmen (ranger?), praying with the civilians (cleric?) will increase morale of the people => 70/30 chance, if sucessful
3. Step (exploration/PvE): Players fabricate defences, smuggle in supplies; poison enemy water supply or sabotage a siege engine => 60/40 chance, if successful
4. Step (combat): When the orcs try to breach the walls, the players do a section of the combat, like fighting the enemy war shaman or an elite force of orcs; depending how quick and decisive their win is (e.g. set up a limited amount of combat rounds) shift the "win/loss meter" in favour of defenders or attackers.
5. Step: resolve the siege with rolling the percentile dice three times: three wins for the orcs => the castle was taken, the players are captured by the orcish army; two wins by the orcs => the castle is taken, but the players and important NPCs could retreat and flee; two wins by the defenders => the orcs were defeated and half of them escaped; the castle was heavily damaged, some important died too; three wins by the defenders => the castle could ward of the orcs, their siege equipment was destroyed and only a few could escape to fight another day.
No large scale combat rules needed. Of course you don't have the experience of classical war gaming with moving troops around a table. It is a story driven approach.
Since the party arrived earlier than you expected, you must have had an idea about how the siege would end.
Do the orcs use a battering ram to smash the gates? What if the party destroys the ram.
Do they climb the walls with ladders? What if the party destroy the ladders.
How many orcs would the party have to kill before the orcs give up and retreat?
Create a few encounters. If the party can do well enough in these encounters, then the siege might end a different way.
Of course the party will decide to something completely different and you will have to wing it.
Lots of great advice here! Thanks.
We play on Monday so I'm going to sit down and decided on a few things. I'll let you know how it goes.