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View Full Version : Elven v orc war & DM needs mission ideas the party can aid on



Sarquion
2010-06-06, 04:41 PM
I need some ideas i can potentially use for my campaign. At the moment they are in a human / Elven metropelis and the party consists of humans and elves with one half orc. Now the half-orc is experiencing troubles with the elves in the city due the war and I need ways for him to participate to show he isn't one of the other brutish orcs but the characters personality is that you would expect a CN barbarian bounty hunter would have making it difficult. He has already been attacked by the commoners and now his guard (who is a high level NPC) has gone off to fight a half-fiend as part of the story.
These guys are boarder level 1 and 2 so many creatures and vast amounts of any are out of the question. So any ideas? (ideally focusing on the war but any other ideas such as fetching supplies from a neighbouring city without making it seem like a fetch and carry quest will still be great or somthing irrelevent to the war entirely could still be useful)

Sorry about any bad grammer and spelling mistakes :smallsmile:

LordShotGun
2010-06-06, 04:52 PM
Well, message carrying to forward military units is always appreciated by the higher ups and would allow the PCs to have a good random encounter and if the random encounter proves to be too challenging you can a human patrol come by in a dues ex to save thier butts. (more battle)

You could have a cleric ask the group to find some medicinal plants nearby and have the characters disturb an animal nest. (more battle)

Have the characters chase and interragate a suspected spy. (more roleplaying)

Have the characters go to any wandering tribes of humans/elfs/halfling and so on and try to get them to join the war. (more roleplaying)

Remember all these ideas I thought about are for lower level characters. At higher levels you could have them go find an artifact or a fabled religious icon from a dungeon.

Greenish
2010-06-06, 04:53 PM
They could let rats into warehouses, poison wells, spread general alarm & despondency etc. now that they've already infiltrated the enemy city.

They can "fail" a diplomatic mission to get aid, or if they're entrusted with such important goals, they might be in position to poison the leaders or let in assassins and other infiltrators and so forth.

GenericGuy
2010-06-06, 04:55 PM
Save a high ranking Elvish official whether by accident or on purpose.

Octopus Jack
2010-06-06, 05:00 PM
Save a high ranking Elvish official whether by accident or on purpose.

Or kill one, help the noble orcs win the war against their evil, oppresive enemy.

Greenish
2010-06-06, 05:02 PM
Or kill one, help the noble orcs win the war against their evil, oppresive enemy.Make it look like an accident, preferably so that they will think you tried to help.

Octopus Jack
2010-06-06, 05:05 PM
Make it look like an accident, preferably so that they will think you tried to help.

Yes! And use the trust they gain to get deeper into the system to do more damage!

vartan
2010-06-06, 11:33 PM
Assuming the orcs are a consolidation of tribes (and the PCs are at a level to make this interesting and have a few sessions to kill):

Kill some Notable of Tribe A, dispose of his corpse, and take his DISTINCTIVE WEAPON. Kill some Notable of Tribe B and leave the DISTINCTIVE WEAPON at the scene.

I am using this if I ever get back to my Orc War campaign.

Rokurai
2010-06-07, 01:00 AM
Sorry ahead of time for long-windedness, but should hopefully help.

You say that he is a CN half-orc Brb, so the fact that he can't get along with any of the NPCs in the city makes sense, and that's just good roleplay. However, consider this: no city is a paragon of its preferred alignment, no matter the races present. There are always those rebellious miscreants or intentionally malicious individuals who the CN half-orc will be able to like(or at least dislike less) who really can't stand the imposed law and bureaucracy, and who think it would be much better to circumvent these pesky limitations. It's not going too far that one of these individuals would be at least a middle or higher ranking military official who sees the half-orc's willingness to handle himself without regard for the law as something that he or she could use to the city's (or themselves, if they're actually evil) benefit. Whether on his or her time off at one of the taverns during a brawl the half-orc is in, or as he or she is passing by in the street and sees a group of guards all converging on one half-orc that still manages to give them trouble(i.e. having him last 3 or 4 rounds against 3 or 4 low lvl guards shouldn't be difficult if he is raging, even if the guards knock him out, the high ranking military official could intervene and command that he and his friends be brought to the operational HQ instead). Now with this happening, the officer could give the party some insignia or symbol that each of them would wear to identify themselves as serving that officer's personal unit, as long as the party agrees to take on a number of missions to weaken the enemy forces. This would provide multiple adventure hooks (i.e. Guard:"High Commander Argus has summoned for you, he seems agitated. I suggest you don't keep him waiting.") and also resolve any enmity present towards the half-orc as long as he doesn't go around murdering innocents(which is CE not CN, and should be treated as CE actions must).

As for adventure hooks which could be done outside the city(better for a barbarian's skill set too) LordShotGun's ideas are all good; I think greenish and his fellow orc sympathizers missed that the half-orc is supposed to be on the elves side; vartan's idea sounds more like a lvl 6-10 type of mission than a lvl 1-2; expanding on trying to get other races or tribes of wandering halflings, dwarves, etc. to join the war effort, these could be long range missions, lasting 3-4 levels, as convincing a group to join you may not be as simple as getting to them, as they usually have their own problems to deal with.

Meanwhile, there are always enemy scout troops to deal with on the front lines. Not big warbands of 100+ orcs and Worg-riders accompanying them, but small troops of 6-7 rangers, barbarians, and an adept would still be a challenging but doable encounter, after which your adventurers could find that (wisdom check ftw) given the direction the scouts are coming from, there is probably a larger warband where there should only be unoccupied forest area. The adventurers must quickly return and warn the field commanders of the danger to their flank, and turn a potentially crushing defeat, into a stalemate, or even a close victory.

If you're really planning on doing a serious eventual all out war campaign, I must recommend this: Create a flexible timeline of how the enemy and allied forces will move and attack. A flowchart of encounters that occur in the game world regardless of whether or not your PCs are there. In each encounter, decide a number between 1-100 as the strength for each side, then when the timeline says that the battle occurs, roll a d%(or 2 d10s if you don't have a d%, taking the 1st as the 10s place where 10 is zero, and the second as 1s place, adding it to the 10s place result to get a number between 1 and 100) and add each side's strength as a modifier.The higher result wins the ensuing battle. This allows the random nature of conflict to be present, but makes impossible victories of one squad of 40 elves with strength 5 defeating an orc war march of 1000+ orcs, worgs, ogres, goblins, etc. with strength 80 less likely. Also remember that defeat does not mean annihilation. If the elven band does win, it is likely that they harassed the orcs and company through the forest using guerrilla tactics, and maybe killing off 100-200 of their number before causing the orcs to retreat and rethink their advance.

Now you may wonder why the timeline must be flexible, if the encounters will occur anyway, but there is a reason for this. At each step in the campaign, give your adventurers multiple options on which to proceed. I.e. letting them choose between collapsing a bridge that will take time to circumvent (this causes a delay in the encounter, and possibly allows the elves and humans to better prepare while the orcs are busy finding another way across), letting them go on an Intel gathering mission in which they must kill a few outer guard groups without alerting the main force in order to spy on their movements(some type of silencing item may be necessary, such as poison gas that immediately seizes up the vocal chords but has no other effects) then report back(something like this would keep the encounter timeline the same, however, you may choose to give the allied forces an insight bonus on their d% encounter roll, depending on the detail and importance of the information anywhere from 3-20 encounter strength for that particular encounter). Later on, your PCs may be powerful enough to attempt to sow discord, as per vartan's idea, and this would weaken both of those encounter groups not only in numbers, but in morale. Also, just as you can have your adventurers try to enlist more allies in the fight, you can have them prevent or discourage more allies from joining the orcs. I.e. the worg pack led by Morlr happily aids the orcs as long as they're provided with food(whether goblins, humans, elves, etc.) and comforts. Should these perks disappear somehow, the worgs would really have no interest in staying with the orcs, not only depriving your enemy of a worg rider unit, but ensuring that a few of them get eaten on the worg's way out as well. All these things have importance in the grand scheme of things. In your flowchart make sure to note any modifiers the adventurers have unknowingly applied to the encounters, whether good or bad for their army(if they screw up and let an enemy scout escape, there will be consequences), who won what encounter, and what this means for the general progress of the war campaign. Also, make 2 endpoints that you're satisfied with. One is the victory condition, i.e. killing the High Warchief that has united the tribes under his banner, killing the demon who is actually responsible for stirring up the orcs and organizing them from unorganized rabble into a threat to the peace and order of an entire kingdom. The other is the defeat conditions. I know you probably don't want to make these, but make sure that they do exist, somewhere near the end or at the end of the timeline, where the city is sacked by the orcs most likely. This will be tough to do if it does happen, but there is no fun in war if there is no possibility of defeat. And if the adventurers have spent their time going and raiding tombs and whatnot instead of strengthening their allies and weakening their enemies, then they will have only themselves to blame when the small remnant or humans and elves evacuate the burning city filled with the screams of the dying innocent to continue their resistance in the forest with bitter thoughts and heavy hearts.

Ahem, again, sorry for the long-windedness, but I believe all this should be helpful. Post or message me if you need clarification at all.

Seffbasilisk
2010-06-07, 04:15 AM
Orcs start burning the Elvish forests.

Humans (innocently? bribed? tricked? commanders bewitched?) begin a lumberjacking operation while the elves are embroiled in a war on a different border.


Elves love dem trees.

dr.cello
2010-06-07, 04:48 AM
Some missions you could do in a wartime setting, especially if it's a siege:

Sabotage: the orcs have a war machine that the PCs need to go out and destroy.

Assassinate: take out an orc officer/mage/important individual and his guards before they can raise the alarm.

Recon in force: try the defenses of an orc position by attacking it, then report back.

Escort/blockade running: escort a friendly caravan/individual/etc past the orc lines and to safety on the other side. This could be a runner trying to escape or someone bringing much needed supplies to the city.

Yora
2010-06-07, 05:44 AM
Have the characters chase and interragate a suspected spy. (more roleplaying)
If the elves suspect him to be a spy for the orcs, so could other people who work for the orcs.
Have an actual spy of the orcs mistake the Half-Orc character as an ally. Thinking he's a friend, the Half-Orc recieves a critical piece of information the elves could never have discovered. But as they don't trust him, the PCs have to solve the situation themselves before it's too late and the orcs will deal a severe blow to the elves.

Sarquion
2010-06-07, 01:49 PM
Kill some Notable of Tribe A, dispose of his corpse, and take his DISTINCTIVE WEAPON. Kill some Notable of Tribe B and leave the DISTINCTIVE WEAPON at the scene.

I like, I like very cunning
Thanks for the posts got so many ideas now :smallsmile: and they will be interesting aswell! But if you have more please keep posting so i can steal all the best scenarios off the web muhahahaha! (<-- evil recuring nemisis laughing)

Choco
2010-06-07, 01:59 PM
Have them join the orcs, they cooler than elves anyway :smalltongue:

To prove himself the half-orc can just go out and bring back orc heads, possibly hunt down specific targets.

In general when there is a big battle the PC's are elite troops, fighting other elite troops, assassinating commanders, running messages through the fray, things like that.


He has already been attacked by the commoners and now his guard (who is a high level NPC) has gone off to fight a half-fiend as part of the story.

I was playing a CN character once and was also attacked by commoners. DM was probably expecting me to run or use nonlethal damage or something, but I slaughtered them in droves until the city guard came by (I had a decent fast healing so I could fight those commoners all day). Of course they did not believe me when I said I did it in self defense (I forgot how, but I DID have solid proof) and some of them attacked me too (apparently they don't like that I killed some family members, even in self defense). I killed them as well. Then I ran before I got overwhelmed. DM called off the session early to try to determine where to go from there. Fun times.

Seatbelt
2010-06-07, 02:04 PM
Play a video game. Really. :P Call of Duty/FPS games can give you a good idea of what it might be like for soldiers on the battle field and the kinds of missions they get on the fly during a big battle field.

The X-wing games (XvT is my favorite, but XWA is good too) or similar flight combat sim could supply you with mission concepts if not actual combat scenarios (wizard = x-wing?). Steal tech (spells/equipment) defend convoys, destroy high value targets, hit-and-fade attacks etc.

An RTS could give you a good idea of commanding the battlefield and the kind of things generals might look for and utilize elite commando troops for (play a high fantasy RTS)

Also nobody likes escort missions. So make them do a lot of them.

Sarquion
2010-06-07, 02:08 PM
Thanks Rokurai for that good full detailed reply helped a lot and thanks all the other guys who posted. Ofc it's not up to me whether they join the orc ranks or help the elves or just don't do anything but we do have a half-elf LG paladin who is kind of the leader so i presume she'll jump at the chance to save both of her races. And thanks to the bridge idea and the guerrilla tatics i can see them both being taken into action at the same time :smallsmile: controling the fight with skill and tatics against the unexpecting orcs :smallbiggrin:

Rokurai
2010-06-07, 07:56 PM
Thanks Rokurai for that good full detailed reply helped a lot and thanks all the other guys who posted. Ofc it's not up to me whether they join the orc ranks or help the elves or just don't do anything but we do have a half-elf LG paladin who is kind of the leader so i presume she'll jump at the chance to save both of her races. And thanks to the bridge idea and the guerrilla tatics i can see them both being taken into action at the same time :smallsmile: controling the fight with skill and tatics against the unexpecting orcs :smallbiggrin:

Taking the DnD ruleset and setting into account, guerrilla warfare combined with SWAT missions is really what adventurers know and do best. Given any generic adventure, you can probably break it down into those two categories. I'm glad to have been of some small assistance.