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View Full Version : Crafty orc horde - Need ideas



evisiron
2009-05-28, 11:10 AM
If you are one of my players, look away now!

So, about to run an introduction to a high fantasy Lord of the Rings-ish campaign. The idea is that an orc horde is moving from point A (their base) to point B (fortified temple of Pelor) to seize a sun based artifact. The horde has been manoeuvred into this by a vampire who has taken control of an orc and boosted his power so he could become warlord, and therefore send the horde after this artifact.

The players will be a band who will presumably want to stop the horde reaching the temple. I am keeping it freeform, but with a predetermined 'schedule' for the horde, i.e. without interference they will reach the temple in 2 weeks. They will number about two thousand in total. I expect the players to try tactics such as setting traps, wrecking siege engines, hijacking supplies and assassinating leaders.

My question is for ideas on how the horde will operate and things they will have. I have already thought of:
-Siege engines for when they arrive
-Worg patrol teams scouting the outside perimeter at night
-Supply trains with food etc
-Trolls and beasts as shock troops
-Orc beserkers and goblin ranged troops

What else would you expect a horde to have? This is both so it makes sense and to provide different challenges for the players.

Edit: In case it matters, the characters will likely be between level 6 and 8, include a Scout, Barbarian, Warmage and Cleric. The horde may have a few powered up things from the vampire, such as enhancements to the warlords personal guard.

Edge
2009-05-28, 11:16 AM
First, may I be so rude as to point to this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75120) for all your elite troop and spellcaster specialist (both divine and arcane) needs?

Seriously, there's a wealth of things to use in there, but if you don't want as much detail, clerics of Gruumsh are a near-necessity. They provide healing and buffs, and are often at the heart of an orc horde's desire for combat - after all, when you've got a crazy orc medicine man shouting at you, telling you that your god wants you to go and break some humans because it's your goddamn birthright, you're probably going to be motivated to do so. :smalltongue:

Harperfan7
2009-05-28, 12:13 PM
Half-orcs as clerics of Gruumsh. They don't have a wisdom penalty and it makes some sense for half-orcs to have a place.

Riffington
2009-05-28, 12:49 PM
Half-orcs as clerics of Gruumsh. They don't have a wisdom penalty and it makes some sense for half-orcs to have a place.

This is one of those areas where you have to figure out what kind of campaign you're running. Strictly speaking, a half-orc has a higher wisdom than an orc and therefore can be a more powerful cleric. But if orc theology/psychology works like I imagine it, then half-orc clerics would be few and far between. A cleric is a leader, after all, and why would a half-breed be a leader? Half-orcs would be always a bit mistrusted and a bit at the social periphery: warrior, expert, etc... and if they get PC classes: barbarian, rogue, fighter, ranger, or scout.

Harperfan7
2009-05-29, 12:12 AM
If I were a half-orc living in an orc tribe, it's what I would do. I would use my natural abilities (or lack of penalties, I guess) to get a position of power where I otherwise couldn't. Smaller and weaker? Use religion! Worked for Ellsworth...

The_Werebear
2009-05-29, 01:15 AM
You might want to throw in some undead if they are going on the behalf of a vampire. It would make sense to me for the Orc Warlord to actually be a full on Vampire, and his bodyguard to be Spawn.

Another useful thing, in addition to the Shamans of Gruumsh, would be to have a few Goblin or Mercenary Wizards thrown in to take care of arcane problems.

Finally, might I suggest an Orc based "troubleshooting party" whose purpose is to foil adventuring parties ruining the Warband's day?

Harperfan7
2009-05-29, 01:20 AM
You might want to throw in some undead if they are going on the behalf of a vampire. It would make sense to me for the Orc Warlord to actually be a full on Vampire, and his bodyguard to be Spawn.

Another useful thing, in addition to the Shamans of Gruumsh, would be to have a few Goblin or Mercenary Wizards thrown in to take care of arcane problems.

Finally, might I suggest an Orc based "troubleshooting party" whose purpose is to foil adventuring parties ruining the Warband's day?

I second this.

Ganurath
2009-05-29, 01:39 AM
The orcs are crusading. That means that there will be Clerics of Gruumsh, and there has to be at least one Eye of Gruumsh (CWarrior 31-33) to help with intertribe unity. Heck, taking out one or more Eyes would destabilize the army drastically.

Have a few of the Clerics, each of at least fifth level, toward the rear of the army with a supply train loaded with black onyx. Orc collapses due to forced march? Reanimated as a skeleton and order them to rejoin the march! Undead orcs are still orcs if they're raised by the power of Gruumsh, and they're better off for it if they were too weak to survive marching to begin with. They don't call him He-Who-Never-Sleeps for nothing!

Have slaves on reserve, in caged carriages pulled by large siege beasts. They're functional as cannon fodder, great for entertainment during the camp times when the clerics are praying for their spells, and in a pinch provide emergency rations.

Looking at Complete Divine, it says that Clerics of Gruumsh undergo training by being "adopted" from among the ranks of soldiers on the march, being taught the dogma of One-Eye until the trainee is able to cast spells. The ability generally emmerges in battle, so I'd suggest having a L1 Cleric accompany higher level ones to provide minor support and a diversionary presence.

Finally, a proper orc horde should favor longspears. This is partly because it's the favored weapon of their deity. Another reason, and in my opinion more relevant...
Rites: The most famous rite in Gruumsh-worship is the Ritual of the Poles. After a battle, orcs mark their new territory by pounding longspears into the ground at the boundary, point up. Placed on each spear-point is the head of a fallen foe.

elliott20
2009-05-29, 02:04 AM
"crafty" also suggests that they have a tactician who is a brilliant strategist too. Maybe you can have an orcish Thief with obscenely high int, ranks knowledge about all sorts of stuff, a couple ranks in spellcraft, etc. Basically, an orc whose sole purpose is to amass as much information/knowledge about as many possible tactical and strategic options as possible. This orc would then advise the warlord on the potential problems that might arise, and how to get around them.

Basically, create an orc who has perfect game-like knowledge and knows of each class exploits. Also, said orc would probably have a spy network or at least a team of info gatherers at his disposal. maybe some people who can scry, some people who know a bit of divine magic, and a some good ol' fashion rogues with a ton of social/disguise skills.

Berserk Monk
2009-05-29, 02:10 AM
Have some clerics on the orc side so they can heal and buff their guys. Maybe also include a dragon (just putting it out there) one of the general rides.

elliott20
2009-05-29, 02:30 AM
Maybe also include a dragon (just putting it out there) one of the general rides.

While the image of that is really cool, I'm not sure it entirely fits. Once you start including dragons into the army, you're iconically dealing with a whole new threat level all together.

Farlion
2009-05-29, 04:00 AM
Don't forget the orcish warchanters with their huge drums! Nothing says "Fear me!" like huge wardrums beating in a solid rythm that goes directly to the stomach!

Cheers,
Farlion

"Drums! Drums in the deep!"

Cheesegear
2009-05-29, 05:03 AM
While the image of that is really cool, I'm not sure it entirely fits. Once you start including dragons into the army, you're iconically dealing with a whole new threat level all together.

...Awesome. Have a Dragon (Black, for preference) polymorphed into a big, giant motorcycle-sized spear-wielding monstrosity of an Orc, whose sole purpose is to bring about the end of everything.

And yes. The vampire has been tricked into giving the dragon extra power. So, when the last straw finally snaps, and the Orc Warlord is sick of the 'pasty puny manling who can't even go in the Sun' (why does the Vampire wants a Sun Artifact?) giving him orders...The Orc finally polymorphs out of his 'weak' Orc form into IT'S DRAGON TIME! and pummels the Vampire into the dust.

Then turns to the party..."You've won this time...But I'll get you next time Adventurers Incorporated!"

elliott20
2009-05-29, 05:07 AM
Then turns to the party..."You've won this time...But I'll get you next time Adventurers Incorporated!"
oddly, this quote alone makes the whole dragon thing suddenly a lot more appropriate.

Ethdred
2009-05-29, 05:14 AM
Not for the horde, but if you want to give the party different challenges, how about having another party getting involved. Maybe with different aims - they could be allies, or they could be enemies, or they could be relatively low level, but hanging around in the background trying to pick up treasure or pick off the wounded.

Kornaki
2009-05-29, 05:22 AM
The orc horde should slowly realize that they're dealing with more than a bunch of commoner partisans. The first raid likely takes place against sleeping guards trying to get rid of a hangover...after two or three raids though the whole camp will be on high alert for the 250 man task force that's shadowing them in the woods

Also, supply trains? I envision a horde moving too fast to get re-supplies; instead there would be foraging parties

The horde shouldn't move as a single group (at least not after a couple of raids); flanking worg cavalry, a vanguard of trolls and their handlers and a rearguard of whatever else they can whip up should keep the PCs on their toes. It's more difficult sneaking into the enemy camp to raid food supplies when there are three separate army groups wandering around rather than just one stationary one. This gives you a couple of things

1) It's harder to eliminate the head guy. He's a lot deeper into enemy territory now, which is good since him dying likely ends the campaign.

2) It's easier to eliminate the guys beneath him. If you want the thing to last two weeks they can't assassinate the head honcho in one shot. So who do they assassinate? In one big camp all the generals will be grouped together; there's no risk benefit analysis for going after smaller guys. But if you can kill the leader of the 200 man flanking force one night, that's very tangible and a much more manageable goal

The orcs will likely have a 'pillage and burn' force; if they're foraging the two tasks will be combined. Basically, reach a village, pillage it, then burn it to the gorund. This is an opportune moment for the PCs to hit since the orcs will be spread out and disorganized due to the easy combat and large battlefield. It also gives a warm squishy feeling to the good guys when they save the townspeople's lives. Make sure to include these, and as with everything else, after a couple of these parties get picked off, make sure they get reinforced (which is basically the real theme; don't let the PCs attack the same thing more than twice without getting killed for it)

Consider the strategic adjustments the leader makes. Is his motivation to get the artifact as quickly as possible, or as safely as possible? Given enough damage he might slow down the advance and send out heavily armed search parties (think 400 men) to track down the attacking force... on the other hand he might just take his core of 100 men and leave the rest behind as they struggle to continue feeding themselves since their foragers keep getting killed and their food stores burned.

On the use of divinations, you want the horde to have access to some, so the players can't move about with impunity (especially hilarious - have a divination spot them in the midddle of sneaking through the camp) but on the other hand if the horde knows who's killing them and where they are, the PCs are dead. So you don't want to give them access to something that gives that information

I keep finishing my post and then coming back to edit something in. There are two ways this could go: orcs have trained archers, or orcs don't. Archery is a pretty skilled form of combat so it's likely nobody bothered to learn how to do it; alternatively it's considered weak to use ranged weapons. In this case there's not a whole lot to worry about. If the orcs do have archers, they should be positioned with the main body (the goblins are probably used as skirmishers?), and the PCs should get smashed by about a hundred arrows in their vicinity as soon as they are spotted and aren't around orcs (for super evil: let the archers kill off their allies). There are barrage rules in the war book whose name eludes me at this time (it's about running PCs in a war campaign) and that should help speed up the process of turning into a pincushion

elliott20
2009-05-29, 06:04 AM
well, the tactical choice the orcs make should not be based on the players but rather based on what the Orcish war chief knows. Going from general strategic decisions, splitting up your army has one severe problem in that you cannot achieve multiple objectives at the same time. But your forces are concentrated and coordination is in fact much easier. concentrating your military forces in one place, while does allow you to have all your work generals in one place, punching through a good enough shell WILL be more difficult.

However, once the Orcs had realized that a credible threat is tracking them, it could be conceivable that they split themselves up as a feign.

Kornaki
2009-05-29, 06:13 AM
well, the tactical choice the orcs make should not be based on the players but rather based on what the Orcish war chief knows. Going from general strategic decisions, splitting up your army has one severe problem in that you cannot achieve multiple objectives at the same time. But your forces are concentrated and coordination is in fact much easier. concentrating your military forces in one place, while does allow you to have all your work generals in one place, punching through a good enough shell WILL be more difficult.

However, once the Orcs had realized that a credible threat is tracking them, it could be conceivable that they split themselves up as a feign.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. They're not sending several groups out in far ranging missions. I don't know how far the flanking forces would be back in those days but we're talking about yards (granted, a large number of them), not miles. The point being that unless they know there's a PC group about, they'll probably assume it's a larger enemy force (this also depends on what the battlefields look like afterwards). Offsetting portions of your army in order to blunt an enemy surprise attack is fairly standard

For the general, the point isn't one of difficulty; if it's too difficult to assassinate anybody, then assassination won't be on the table. But if the enemy just has one big camp (again, a strategic blunder if they think they're being shadowed by an enemy army) then all the generals will be in the one camp. Which means if you're going to bother weaving your way all the way through to assassinate somebody, the only logical target is the warleader. So now it's an all or nothing affair, where the act of assassination is equivalent to winning the campaign

elliott20
2009-05-29, 06:25 AM
No, that's not what I'm talking about. They're not sending several groups out in far ranging missions. I don't know how far the flanking forces would be back in those days but we're talking about yards (granted, a large number of them), not miles.

you see, that alone was all you needed to say.