Hey guys, I need some advice and people to bounce some ideas off of. Currently, the type of campaign I'm running leads to large scale combat as its based on multiple kingdoms in war. I think i've gotten the grasp of how large scale combat will play out in the open terrain, essentially a combination of objectives rather than 1000 units vs 1000 units combat. However, I'm having some hiccups when it comes to sieges of settlements. The projected story will lead the enemy army to take over an allied city, and depending on how the players react they might have to take it back. I need help brainstorming some ideas on how they might try and accomplish that. Or in the extreme case, when the party retaliates by trying to take one of the enemy cities without any aid while all the enemies forces are absent. I'd appreciate any advice you guys have.
The easiest way to deal with something like this is to create checkpoints and primary/secondary locations. As the players attempt to re/take a city they must reclaim these locations and each one represents momentum toward success.
Reclaiming the town of Brownstone:
Victory: recovering 80% of the town
Checkpoints: East gate North Gate Town Square
Primary Targets: Barracks Smithy Church Granary
Secondary Targets: Tavern/Inn Stables Mayor's House
If the player can reclaim 6-8 of those locations they can rally against the opponents and the town is saved. You then populate each location with troops that match the party level. 4-6 for a fairly difficult battle sounds good, 2-4 for a little easier battle. Toss in a few random patrols of 2-3 troops that wander the town. Then you have all of these troops react to the amount of noise and damage, or lack there of, to indicate the opponents recognizing the on coming battles.
I'm with DMThac0 on this one. Make the takeover contingent on one or two or a few things the players have to accomplish. They need to clear the gatehouse to get the gates open. They fail, the invasion fails. If they get it open, there's another key thing they have to do. If they fail there--there may be multiple outcomes depending on how they fail. Failure A happens, the city is in a statemate, street to street fighting, both sides sending riders for reinforcements. Anarchy! Failure B happens, invasion fails. Failure C happens, the invasion succeeds, but 90% of the invading force is killed as well.
Basically, don't make the fighting of the masses of troops based on rolling for that fighting. Make the large-scale stuff dependent on what the party does.
My thought would be that a high ranking person says that their mission is to be part of an infiltration party of about 10 people. They are supposed to kill _____, or getbinto the castle and gather info on where there might be some good places to attack, or who to attack, anything really.
I saw a supplement in the DMGuild website about bar room brawls. Instead of having dozens of enemy creatures in the brawl to keep track of, the supplement turned the entire brawl into a single monster stat block. Then the players fought the "bar brawl" creature with a variety of skill checks and combat, depending on what your character was most skilled at.
I found the concept of turning swarms into single monsters to be creative. You can turn your siege or counter siege into one 'creature' and build encounter mechanics around it that your party has to fight with combat and skill checks.
DMThac0 has a system that I like a lot. He seems to have it based on a handful of skirmishes and there is something compelling about that for me. I should try a scenario like that in one of my sessions. I recently handled a combat situation where the party was with a group of about 30 paladins who were waiting to be invaded by an army of several hundred undead. I handled the mass combat a little differently. I will link the thread where I lay out the process I used. In a nutshell, everyone did a skill challenge to represent how they bolstered the fortifications. Then there was a second pass/fail skill challenge to represent the larger battle itself and the DC of the second challenge was affected by the success of the first. It was very simple in execution and the players really enjoyed the way they got to roleplay their combat preparations.
The final battle ended up being between a few key enemies and my players and it was more of a traditional combat encounter. i added some lair actions to represent the battle going on around the party. We all had a great time with it.
In a nutshell, everyone did a skill challenge to represent how they bolstered the fortifications. Then there was a second pass/fail skill challenge to represent the larger battle itself and the DC of the second challenge was affected by the success of the first. It was very simple in execution and the players really enjoyed the way they got to roleplay their combat preparations.
I looked at this thread and I can see it being used in conjunction with the method I had outlined.
Siege Defense: Goal is to succeed against attrition and repel the invaders. **Special property of Siege: all resources (HP, spells, abilities, etc) recover at 1/2 their normal amount per rest**
Day/Night 1: Skill challenges to fortify defensive position.
Day 2: Initial attack Successful defense: Assess troop loss on both sides (greater for invaders) Failure of defense: Assess troop loss on both sides (greater for defenders)
Night 2: Respond to attack Previous success: Possible counter attack by players (use the method outlined in my above post) Previous failure: Refortifying position (use skill checks again with higher DCs)
Day 3: Secondary Attack Successful defense: Troop loss on both sides (morale check of invading army) Failure on defense: City gate/wall breached
Night 3/Day 4: Resolution Previous success: Retaliate if the invaders have not fled (use method outlined in my above post) Previous failure: Recover the city (use method outlined in my above post)
Not sure how well this would play out, but I'd have fun trying it one of these days...unfortunately none of my groups are in a position to have a large scale battle at the moment. (I'll add this to your thread if you wish TexasDevin, including the checkpoint method)
This is wild. It can become super involved, but as long as everyone is into it, you can turn the battle for the city into a multi-session epic scenario.
One key question to answer is how your spellcasters are going to 'reload'. If you have multiple sessions dealing with a full scale city invasion, you'll want to know how to make sure your spell casters are able to get spell slots back. If the battle is literally 'raging in the streets' the whole time, it would seem less than ideal for the party to just go chill for 8 hours, right? Even a warlock is going to find it hard to find a place to get in a short rest.
Healing potions can get HP back, but spells are going to be needed. How will that happen? Rods of Absorption all around? Homebrewed Potions of Arcane Restoration? Maybe the army has developed Potions of Rest, something like that.
I just know that multiple sessions with only one Rest's worth of spell slots would be tough.
In my previous post I suggested making it so you regain 1/2 of your resources on a rest. This would include short and long rests. The reason behind this suggestion is to imply exactly what you're describing: Due to the crazy nature of a full scale battle it will be more difficult to get a proper rest.
I went that direction because I feel Exhaustion quickly becomes much more debilitating than simply being a bit low on resources. With proper management and creativity it's possible to fight with reduced resources whereas Exhaustion restricts much more.
This also can explain only getting 4 hours of rest for the night rather than the 6-8. Elves are still not going to get their full rest due to the chaotic nature of the battle, sitting in a trance will be much more difficult. They may get the 4 hour trance but it will not be as recuperative as if they were in the stillness that they normally have.
In my previous post I suggested making it so you regain 1/2 of your resources on a rest. This would include short and long rests. The reason behind this suggestion is to imply exactly what you're describing: Due to the crazy nature of a full scale battle it will be more difficult to get a proper rest.
I went that direction because I feel Exhaustion quickly becomes much more debilitating than simply being a bit low on resources. With proper management and creativity it's possible to fight with reduced resources whereas Exhaustion restricts much more.
This also can explain only getting 4 hours of rest for the night rather than the 6-8. Elves are still not going to get their full rest due to the chaotic nature of the battle, sitting in a trance will be much more difficult. They may get the 4 hour trance but it will not be as recuperative as if they were in the stillness that they normally have.
I get where you're coming from. I wanted to point out though that, in a city invasion, even getting 4 hours of rest might be wildly implausible depending on the invasion.
If this is a medieval city, it's not NYC sized. So you might have a siege, during which you can rest. But once the walls come down or get breached, the streets fill with combatants. Bad guys are heading for the keep, house-to-house fighting. Where do you get 4 hours to lay down? Particularly for people who have cantrips and are still useful. If the fighting is still happening outside, the wizard saying "I know I could be helping still, but I need my big spells" and taking a break isn't great :)
What you'd need to have the possibility of taking breaks at all is
A battle that lasts long enough to even have enough time to take breaks, of course. So, for three sessions, even if you go with short rests, you're looking at something like a 24 hour span.
But then you need to be able to rest...which, if the PCs are central to the fight, would mean that there would have to be times when there isn't much fighting. So that means you need an invasion that has pauses. That's fairly unusual for smaller places like medieval cities.
So you need something like the invaders break in through the walls, and then something stops them--the defenders rally, stop them at maybe a natural barrier inside the city, a river maybe, or an inner wall--and the fighting slacks off for the night. Then it resumes in the morning (or at 2am because the invaders are sneaky :)
But if it's 'randomly generated fantasy city', and there's just a maze of streets inside the city walls, there's really nothing to stop that fighting from continuing. The invaders won't stop if they are gaining ground. And if they aren't, the defenders won't stop pushing back until the invaders are out of the walls again. Unless there are natural 'break points' inside the city. Like the river, inner walls, magically created barriers, etc.
Basically, something will have to stop the fighting for 4-8 hours. That's not something that will naturally happen, so the DM needs to orchestrate that.
Hmm, I do find the concept of how the party finds a rest interesting. However, I do think that the knowledge of the players not being able to rest could actually create a more interesting siege. Referring back to DMThac0's first post, I really like the idea of checkpoints and clearing certain areas or buildings which I think can play more into the party's use of resources. For example, perhaps the major town center would be a major target to capture, therefore it could be heavily guarded and the party might have to make the choice of burning resources to attempt a major target capture, where succeeding can hinder their resources and failing could be devestating as the players have burned resources and haven't captured the target which can cause the players to have to come up with another plan. Or perhaps the party desides to take many smaller fights where they don't need to burn many resources in attempt to control enough area to take the city. I think this puts the game in a more tactical view, which could be a good thing or bad thing.
Hmm, I do find the concept of how the party finds a rest interesting. However, I do think that the knowledge of the players not being able to rest could actually create a more interesting siege. Referring back to DMThac0's first post, I really like the idea of checkpoints and clearing certain areas or buildings which I think can play more into the party's use of resources. For example, perhaps the major town center would be a major target to capture, therefore it could be heavily guarded and the party might have to make the choice of burning resources to attempt a major target capture, where succeeding can hinder their resources and failing could be devestating as the players have burned resources and haven't captured the target which can cause the players to have to come up with another plan. I think this puts the game in a more tactical view, which could be a good thing or bad thing.
I agree that it can be cool. And maybe the players will enjoy that. But I'm currently playing a warlock, and if I knew I was looking forward to three sessions of gaming that would take place over the course of only 6 hours, me and my 2 or 3 spells are going to start to worry. Strategizing is fun, but two whole sessions spent casting only cantrips might not be. :) Even if we plan for when to use them, I now have essentially 1 spell per session that I can cast. That's 1st Ed Wizard levels of frustration :)
I agree that it can be cool. And maybe the players will enjoy that. But I'm currently playing a warlock, and if I knew I was looking forward to three sessions of gaming that would take place over the course of only 6 hours, me and my 2 or 3 spells are going to start to worry. Strategizing is fun, but two whole sessions spent casting only cantrips might not be. :) Even if we plan for when to use them, I now have essentially 1 spell per session that I can cast. That's 1st Ed Wizard levels of frustration :)
True, but I think it could easily be over multiple days. Whether its the attackers coming and going in waves or the occupation of the city changing day to day. Although I do think that as a Dm I need to come up with a plan on how I want the party to rest or not rest and be upfront about that with them. If they blow all their spells first fight expecting they will be able to rest and they can't, I think the blame would then fall on me.
Hey guys, I need some advice and people to bounce some ideas off of. Currently, the type of campaign I'm running leads to large scale combat as its based on multiple kingdoms in war. I think i've gotten the grasp of how large scale combat will play out in the open terrain, essentially a combination of objectives rather than 1000 units vs 1000 units combat. However, I'm having some hiccups when it comes to sieges of settlements. The projected story will lead the enemy army to take over an allied city, and depending on how the players react they might have to take it back. I need help brainstorming some ideas on how they might try and accomplish that. Or in the extreme case, when the party retaliates by trying to take one of the enemy cities without any aid while all the enemies forces are absent. I'd appreciate any advice you guys have.
The easiest way to deal with something like this is to create checkpoints and primary/secondary locations. As the players attempt to re/take a city they must reclaim these locations and each one represents momentum toward success.
Reclaiming the town of Brownstone:
Victory: recovering 80% of the town
Checkpoints:
East gate
North Gate
Town Square
Primary Targets:
Barracks
Smithy
Church
Granary
Secondary Targets:
Tavern/Inn
Stables
Mayor's House
If the player can reclaim 6-8 of those locations they can rally against the opponents and the town is saved. You then populate each location with troops that match the party level. 4-6 for a fairly difficult battle sounds good, 2-4 for a little easier battle. Toss in a few random patrols of 2-3 troops that wander the town. Then you have all of these troops react to the amount of noise and damage, or lack there of, to indicate the opponents recognizing the on coming battles.
I'm with DMThac0 on this one. Make the takeover contingent on one or two or a few things the players have to accomplish. They need to clear the gatehouse to get the gates open. They fail, the invasion fails. If they get it open, there's another key thing they have to do. If they fail there--there may be multiple outcomes depending on how they fail. Failure A happens, the city is in a statemate, street to street fighting, both sides sending riders for reinforcements. Anarchy! Failure B happens, invasion fails. Failure C happens, the invasion succeeds, but 90% of the invading force is killed as well.
Basically, don't make the fighting of the masses of troops based on rolling for that fighting. Make the large-scale stuff dependent on what the party does.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
My thought would be that a high ranking person says that their mission is to be part of an infiltration party of about 10 people. They are supposed to kill _____, or getbinto the castle and gather info on where there might be some good places to attack, or who to attack, anything really.
I saw a supplement in the DMGuild website about bar room brawls. Instead of having dozens of enemy creatures in the brawl to keep track of, the supplement turned the entire brawl into a single monster stat block. Then the players fought the "bar brawl" creature with a variety of skill checks and combat, depending on what your character was most skilled at.
I found the concept of turning swarms into single monsters to be creative. You can turn your siege or counter siege into one 'creature' and build encounter mechanics around it that your party has to fight with combat and skill checks.
DMThac0 has a system that I like a lot. He seems to have it based on a handful of skirmishes and there is something compelling about that for me. I should try a scenario like that in one of my sessions. I recently handled a combat situation where the party was with a group of about 30 paladins who were waiting to be invaded by an army of several hundred undead. I handled the mass combat a little differently. I will link the thread where I lay out the process I used. In a nutshell, everyone did a skill challenge to represent how they bolstered the fortifications. Then there was a second pass/fail skill challenge to represent the larger battle itself and the DC of the second challenge was affected by the success of the first. It was very simple in execution and the players really enjoyed the way they got to roleplay their combat preparations.
Here is where I described my mass combat scenario.
The final battle ended up being between a few key enemies and my players and it was more of a traditional combat encounter. i added some lair actions to represent the battle going on around the party. We all had a great time with it.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I looked at this thread and I can see it being used in conjunction with the method I had outlined.
Siege Defense: Goal is to succeed against attrition and repel the invaders.
**Special property of Siege: all resources (HP, spells, abilities, etc) recover at 1/2 their normal amount per rest**
Day/Night 1:
Skill challenges to fortify defensive position.
Day 2: Initial attack
Successful defense: Assess troop loss on both sides (greater for invaders)
Failure of defense: Assess troop loss on both sides (greater for defenders)
Night 2: Respond to attack
Previous success: Possible counter attack by players (use the method outlined in my above post)
Previous failure: Refortifying position (use skill checks again with higher DCs)
Day 3: Secondary Attack
Successful defense: Troop loss on both sides (morale check of invading army)
Failure on defense: City gate/wall breached
Night 3/Day 4: Resolution
Previous success: Retaliate if the invaders have not fled (use method outlined in my above post)
Previous failure: Recover the city (use method outlined in my above post)
Not sure how well this would play out, but I'd have fun trying it one of these days...unfortunately none of my groups are in a position to have a large scale battle at the moment. (I'll add this to your thread if you wish TexasDevin, including the checkpoint method)
This is wild. It can become super involved, but as long as everyone is into it, you can turn the battle for the city into a multi-session epic scenario.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
One key question to answer is how your spellcasters are going to 'reload'. If you have multiple sessions dealing with a full scale city invasion, you'll want to know how to make sure your spell casters are able to get spell slots back. If the battle is literally 'raging in the streets' the whole time, it would seem less than ideal for the party to just go chill for 8 hours, right? Even a warlock is going to find it hard to find a place to get in a short rest.
Healing potions can get HP back, but spells are going to be needed. How will that happen? Rods of Absorption all around? Homebrewed Potions of Arcane Restoration? Maybe the army has developed Potions of Rest, something like that.
I just know that multiple sessions with only one Rest's worth of spell slots would be tough.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
In my previous post I suggested making it so you regain 1/2 of your resources on a rest. This would include short and long rests. The reason behind this suggestion is to imply exactly what you're describing: Due to the crazy nature of a full scale battle it will be more difficult to get a proper rest.
I went that direction because I feel Exhaustion quickly becomes much more debilitating than simply being a bit low on resources. With proper management and creativity it's possible to fight with reduced resources whereas Exhaustion restricts much more.
This also can explain only getting 4 hours of rest for the night rather than the 6-8. Elves are still not going to get their full rest due to the chaotic nature of the battle, sitting in a trance will be much more difficult. They may get the 4 hour trance but it will not be as recuperative as if they were in the stillness that they normally have.
I get where you're coming from. I wanted to point out though that, in a city invasion, even getting 4 hours of rest might be wildly implausible depending on the invasion.
If this is a medieval city, it's not NYC sized. So you might have a siege, during which you can rest. But once the walls come down or get breached, the streets fill with combatants. Bad guys are heading for the keep, house-to-house fighting. Where do you get 4 hours to lay down? Particularly for people who have cantrips and are still useful. If the fighting is still happening outside, the wizard saying "I know I could be helping still, but I need my big spells" and taking a break isn't great :)
What you'd need to have the possibility of taking breaks at all is
So you need something like the invaders break in through the walls, and then something stops them--the defenders rally, stop them at maybe a natural barrier inside the city, a river maybe, or an inner wall--and the fighting slacks off for the night. Then it resumes in the morning (or at 2am because the invaders are sneaky :)
But if it's 'randomly generated fantasy city', and there's just a maze of streets inside the city walls, there's really nothing to stop that fighting from continuing. The invaders won't stop if they are gaining ground. And if they aren't, the defenders won't stop pushing back until the invaders are out of the walls again. Unless there are natural 'break points' inside the city. Like the river, inner walls, magically created barriers, etc.
Basically, something will have to stop the fighting for 4-8 hours. That's not something that will naturally happen, so the DM needs to orchestrate that.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Hmm, I do find the concept of how the party finds a rest interesting. However, I do think that the knowledge of the players not being able to rest could actually create a more interesting siege. Referring back to DMThac0's first post, I really like the idea of checkpoints and clearing certain areas or buildings which I think can play more into the party's use of resources. For example, perhaps the major town center would be a major target to capture, therefore it could be heavily guarded and the party might have to make the choice of burning resources to attempt a major target capture, where succeeding can hinder their resources and failing could be devestating as the players have burned resources and haven't captured the target which can cause the players to have to come up with another plan. Or perhaps the party desides to take many smaller fights where they don't need to burn many resources in attempt to control enough area to take the city. I think this puts the game in a more tactical view, which could be a good thing or bad thing.
I agree that it can be cool. And maybe the players will enjoy that. But I'm currently playing a warlock, and if I knew I was looking forward to three sessions of gaming that would take place over the course of only 6 hours, me and my 2 or 3 spells are going to start to worry. Strategizing is fun, but two whole sessions spent casting only cantrips might not be. :) Even if we plan for when to use them, I now have essentially 1 spell per session that I can cast. That's 1st Ed Wizard levels of frustration :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
True, but I think it could easily be over multiple days. Whether its the attackers coming and going in waves or the occupation of the city changing day to day. Although I do think that as a Dm I need to come up with a plan on how I want the party to rest or not rest and be upfront about that with them. If they blow all their spells first fight expecting they will be able to rest and they can't, I think the blame would then fall on me.