You are the Bad Guy: Assault the City!

[Babale]

You know who you are if you aren't supposed to read this.

The players, both of whom are level 5, are currently in a large city (Population: 12,000) called Sanlot. They returned to the city after slaying a dragon for the king, only to find it besieged by a powerful force. Due to their service to the king, they have earned the king's trust, enough that he requested their help in the upcoming siege. Since they needed something from the king, and because they are both Good, they agreed.

As part of the war council, they found out the grim truth: The City of Sanlot is in terrible danger. The Good Guys have 3,000 well-trained men, mostly 1st level crusaders and fighters armed with medium/heavy armor, shields, swords, and crossbows. They have three dozen wizards, only ten or so of whom are high enough level to cast area of effect spells like Fireball or Lightning Bolt. They have fifty clerics who can't do much more than heal. They had a strong air cavalry force of 200 griffon riders, but they already lost 50 to the enemy on scouting missions, as will be explained in a moment. They have 200 heavy cavalry units, mostly paladins. Finally, they have eight catapults, four trebuchets, and two dozen ballista. As far as walls go, they're a little more fortunate: The city walls are 30 feet high and wide enough to be nearly impossible to breach, with multiple towers and only two gates, on the Northern wall and the Western wall. Bellow the Eastern wall is a cliff, making the city impossible to assault from that direction, even if a breach was to be formed. The enemy army is currently camped to the North. Beyond the first layer of walls, the castle itself is a well-fortified keep, which lies beyond a second set of walls. All in all, a classic city. The streets are narrow, and well-suited for phalanx warfare, in case the enemy breaches. Last but not least, the Bad Guys brought a group of Orcish Berserkers along, but the PCs managed to sway them to the Light Side. So the Good Guys have a thousand Orcish Berserkers, or Orcs with a higher Strength and Con score than normal, the Powerful Build ability, a move speed of 50, and large-sized double axes.

The Good Guys also have a few secret weapons up their sleeves, but I'm not going to mention those because the Bad Guys aren't aware of these, and my question isn't about the Good Guys.

The Bad Guys are after something that's inside the castle. They have two reasons to take out the city instead of stealing it: One, they personally hate the city and wish to see it destroyed. And two, raising an army of (in their eyes) completely disposable minions happened to be slightly easier than sneaking into the castle and getting the item past the king, who is a level 10 Crusader, one of the Masters of the Nine, and one of the most powerful men in the world.

The Bad Guys have the advantage of numbers and physical might, but not of training or equipment. The majority of the army is The Horde, a huge union of about two dozen Gnoll tribes. They're relatively unarmored, carry a heavy shield and axe, along with throwing axes. Most of the ten thousand Gnolls are on foot, but about a thousand have dire hyena mounts, along with lances. The army's shock troops, now that the Berserkers are gone, are four battalions of 500 Ogres and Hill Giants, two thousand in total, all armed with nothing more than clubs. Their real ace is the 1200 trolls, which should prove a real threat to any unit that's unable to burn them. As far as siege units go, the army is pretty starved; they have forty stone giants, who can throw rocks, which could be devastating for the troops on the wall or, perhaps, manage to knock open one of the gates. Other than that, their only siege weapons are the ladders that the Gnolls are carrying. In the air, the enemy has 10 white dragons, 5 of which are Very Young, 2 of which are Young, 2 of which are Juvenile, and 1 of which is a Young Adult. So far, the dragons have been slaughtering the griffon patrols, both because the griffons have only attacked in small scouting parties and because they lack ranged attacks, so the dragons can fly around them in circles and destroying them with their breath weapon.

So that's the situation, and I apologize for the wall of text in advance; hopefully at least some of you will be interested enough to read. So, here's the thing: The PCs have been working on various defense strategies, which is great. But I've had to come up with both the strategies of the leadership in Sanlot and with the enemy's strategy, AND I've had to do it from the standpoint of someone who isn't aware of what the other side is planning. So, I wanted to see what you guys could come up with, from the PoV of someone who isn't aware of what the enemy is planning.

So, you are the BBEG here. You don't care about the city, about your troops, or about anything else; you just want to get inside the keep, take the artifact, and leave. How would you do it?

EDIT: I forgot to mention the Bad Guy casters. There's a few of them, but they're there for combat with the PCs. On a tactical level, they barely matter at all.

EDIT 2: Waiting it out isn't an option. An army of ~12,000 men needs to move constantly to eat. The Gnolls tribes raised cattle, sheep, and various livestock in their homes, and they brought their herds with them, so they have enough food for now; and as they move across towards the city, they'll pillage the farmland, which should buy them a few more days. But the Horde survives by pillaging city after city and eating everything there. Being Gnolls, they'll even eat their enemies. So the siege can go on for 2, 3 days tops, before the Horde is going to get bored and attack, with or without your BBEG permission. You only need them to take this one city, though; after that, you'll let them do as they will.

[The Mentalist]

Does team Evil have access to any of the following?:

Any way to create undead, (Preferably Wight/Shadow) (Wight can be accomplished by a single negative level, can be done at level 3 with a single feat)
Large Battering Ram, (Large stripped tree will work) Something to allow 10-12 Aid Another checks on bursting that gate open.

These will be the two biggest game changers if they can be found. Do you have access to poison or disease to throw over the walls? Incubation period of two or three days will get a batch of stat damage to about 1/2% of the population. Throw a couple of sick folks over the walls, all that jazz.


The Hyena mounts will be basically useless as mounts if there are not enough straight and uncluttered streets but they are competent fighters themselves.


"well-suited for phalanx warfare" Precisely how wide? 10'? 20'? How many trolls will it take to completely block a street?

Dragons? Even the small ones have amazing AC, quite often too much for a level 1 to have a chance of hitting. Fly-by-attack + Breathe + Retreat = Mass death and carnage

[kardar233]

Don't care about the city or your own troops, huh? Nuke 'em in their pretty little castle.

Not literally. You'll need lots of oil and a 7th-level Wizard who knows Forcewave, Energy Resistance, Body of the Sun and Fly. Other spells will work, but these are optimal.

So once you've forced the enemy forces into their castle and are laying siege to it, do this:

Step 1: Get an obliging White Dragon of yours to carry a ton of oil, have the Wizard cast Body of the Sun, Fly and Energy Resistance (Fire) and have him fly a ways beneath the dragon, above the castle.
Step 2: Have the Wizard ready an action to cast Forcewave and then have the dragon drop all the oil over him.
Step 3: The oil should fall almost past the Wizard before he casts for maximum effect. The oil flies out in approximately a downwards cone, and then the Body of the Sun ignites the very tip of the cone where the Wizard is.
Step 4: The oil ignites sequentially outwards, creating a powerful shockwave.
Step 5: ???
Step 6: You have just created a medieval fuel-air bomb and aimed it at the enemy castle. The shockwave's effects will be similar to (but greater than) an earthquake, collapsing the castle with your enemies inside. Charge once the ceiling stops falling Profit? Hell yes.

[demigodus]

What is the political situation in the city, and what is the artifact in question? My first bet would be to have the BBEG make a deal where, if he is given an artifact, he shall leave and order his troops to withdraw. Then proceed to plan an invasion on the assumption that won't happen, but have that just in case some of the nobles decide that heroically sacrificing the city is a bad idea.

Is the city made out of stone buildings, or wooden buildings? Or does it at least have large sections made out of flammable materials?

Does the BBEG have anyone that can cast immunity to fire/acid, or resistance to those on the trolls? Would it be reasonable to assume he would have bought the scrolls for that? If so, a few such trolls with battering rams could have fun with the gates. Possibly cast wind wall there just to ignore the defenders even more as they break down the gate.

[Babale]

Alright, let's answer all of these.



Any way to create undead, (Preferably Wight/Shadow) (Wight can be accomplished by a single negative level, can be done at level 3 with a single feat)No. Casters are very, very rare, and focused on debuffs. And barely any of them are high enough level to cast Animate Dead. This is a low-level world; 10 is considered "Legendary", and the PCs (who are 5) are very remarkable.

Large Battering Ram, (Large stripped tree will work) Something to allow 10-12 Aid Another checks on bursting that gate open.That's much easier. Yes, they have access to battering rams.


These will be the two biggest game changers if they can be found. Do you have access to poison or disease to throw over the walls? Incubation period of two or three days will get a batch of stat damage to about 1/2% of the population. Throw a couple of sick folks over the walls, all that jazz.Two to three days is the absolute maximum amount of time that they're willing to wait. The biggest problem here is, they have no catapults, no trebuchets... Their only artillery weapons are the giants (who would be decimated by ballistas if they got close enough to throw infected bodies over the walls) or the dragons (who couldn't stand up to all 150 remaining griffons).



The Hyena mounts will be basically useless as mounts if there are not enough straight and uncluttered streets but they are competent fighters themselves.
The problem here is that they have to get inside first, which won't happen unless the battering rams work or the Gnolls take command of the gate long enough to open it.


"well-suited for phalanx warfare" Precisely how wide? 10'? 20'? How many trolls will it take to completely block a street?
In the residential areas, it's very, very thin. Between 5' and 10'. Major streets are 20' wide in the residential area. Around the market, the streets are between 10' and 25' wide. A single troll can block pretty much any street, at least with reach if not with his body.


Dragons? Even the small ones have amazing AC, quite often too much for a level 1 to have a chance of hitting. Fly-by-attack + Breathe + Retreat = Mass death and carnageThe dragons might be faster than the griffons, but if they come close to the walls, they'll get charged, and they're outnumbered 15 to 1. Maybe the Young Adult can take out 15 Griffon Riders, but I doubt the younger ones can. Not to mention they'll be peppered by crossbow bolts (and if I know my PCs, they'll find a way to angle the ballistas up too) as soon as they come in range.

Doesn't Dragonlance have feats that let a dragon do a strafing run with his breath weapon? I should look that up...

[Aeryr]

That sounds like a fun challenge :smallsmile: but I am AFB so I might toss some suggestions and then elaborate.

There are siege weapons in the Heroes of battle book that might prove interesting, if I do remember correctly there is a siege weapon propertie that turns those killed by it into zombies and there is a version of animate legion (Since the players are level 5 maybe this is too much for them to handle if so a siege with disease and virulence might do the trick). Not having conventional siege weapons is not a problem enchant big enough rocks and have the giants throw them (that might make raids interesting for pcs). Bad part about the plan is that the zombies are uncontrolled so it depends if the BBEG cares about the troops. If he does well then just throw the bolts before the assault so the humans have to fight the zombies/skelies and there are less left for the horde. If he just doesn't care about the troops send the troops and keep firing, of course fire most to the humans side, but if your troops die and are raised well that is not a bad thing, is it? The zombies should not last long so once everyone is dead just walk into the city take the artifact like a boss and leave. This plan also gets free delicious snacks for the troops (or at least the trolls/dragons).

Wait for the fog or create it and then ninja gnolls strike teams! This should also let the pcs play some part on fighting them. A possibility is to send 3 ninja teams each accompanied by an spellcaster (like a shaman or something) and the pcs have to divide to fight them. If they do it quikly they might get to the third strike team before the strike team finishes its mission. If not, well... think about something bad, but not too bad. Food/water poisoning? Bombs?

Start attacking surrounding farms so you get a lot of snacks (I mean farmers) if they run away from you and get into the city good people tend to feed them so diming their resources. You can probably just take the city by siege having platoons of gnoll archers and dragons coordinate to kill any griffon rider messenger that tries to get away. If they were to make a run with every griffon rider aivalable chase them for a while but then return to the city and just bombard it to death, their most important troops just left, to fight another die.

Get some kobolds (again easy snacks) they make good miners/sapers/crappy enginers you can just tunnel into the city. Or just destroy the fundations of the city. I suppose that depends, taking the city is interesting for the BBEG?

Does the city have a river? Start water poisoning it. Or build a dam, no water for them more water for your troops. At least until you launch the attack just break the dam and hope that the water floods part of the city.

Burn it with fire. Give slings to the giants. Give barrels to the casters. Fill barrels with alchemist fire. PROFIT. Fire is good for demoralizing, for killing and for cooking. Smoke substitutes fog quite well.

Overall my mean persona wants to have a necromancer dragon with an agenda (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DragonWithAnAgenda). That presses the BBEG in order to use his necromantic might, at first gnoll strike teams and conventional siege are used while the dragon rallies around him the casters/shamans of the tribes to his side. The strategy is then switched to siege with necromancy (using the tools listed above) and when the final assault launches, the dragon keeps shooting them with death (and by them I mean everyone). He later apologize if the city is taken and the BBEG is alive and the BBEG needs his necromantic skills to rise skelies zombies as new cannon fodder.

Edit: wow to much time without refreshing the window, my bad.

[Babale]

Not literally. You'll need lots of oil and a 7th-level Wizard who knows Forcewave, Energy Resistance, Body of the Sun and Fly. Other spells will work, but these are optimal.There's your problem. Neither side has a 7th level Wizard. The bad guys don't even have a 5th level Wizard.


What is the political situation in the city, and what is the artifact in question? The artifact is a book, which will give the BBEG untold amounts of power. The King is very, very popular, given that he has personally slain 3 Adult dragons over the years. The nobles might desert the city and give up the book if he is killed in battle, but not a minute before then.
My first bet would be to have the BBEG make a deal where, if he is given an artifact, he shall leave and order his troops to withdraw. Then proceed to plan an invasion on the assumption that won't happen, but have that just in case some of the nobles decide that heroically sacrificing the city is a bad idea.The BBEG originally hails from the city, and is familiar with the king's stance and the political situation. He'll probably try to negotiate anyways, though.


Is the city made out of stone buildings, or wooden buildings? Or does it at least have large sections made out of flammable materials?Mostly stone. The market is made of stone, but the warehouse are filled with flammable grain. And part of the PC's plan involved dragging in tons and tons of flammable pine trees and sap, which the enemy would have seen.


Does the BBEG have anyone that can cast immunity to fire/acid, or resistance to those on the trolls? Would it be reasonable to assume he would have bought the scrolls for that? If so, a few such trolls with battering rams could have fun with the gates. Possibly cast wind wall there just to ignore the defenders even more as they break down the gate.A better question is, "is it reasonable to assume anyone in the world can cast those spells?". There's maybe 10 people alive above level 12; the last party to reach 15th level was the original Masters of the Nine, and in this campaign, they united the entire world for a hundred years.

EDIT: The part about Fog Cloud is brilliant, though. I can't believe I didn't think of that. Get every cleric in the army to cast Fog spells all along the path to the gate, send the trolls in with a battering ram, send the gnolls up the walls at the same time, and BAM! I'm in.

[Vizzerdrix]

How about having the giants throw the trolls over the walls by a gate? Do it during a push on both gates (one as a distraction) to split the defending forces. Then have the regenerating trolls get up and attack the gate from the other side.

[SlyJohnny]

Advance to the city and start getting people to try to scale the walls, to get a sense of the enemy defensive strategy, cause the seige to fire (even if they're overcrewed, they take a few rounds to reload) and try to draw the griffins out to reduce their numbers.

Advance the giants with the casters, with as many defenses as they can spare. Ideally they'd be illusioned to be regular gnolls, or obscured by fog, but they must have Enlarge Person cast upon them. Have them smash the walls. As soon as there's a breach, have the cavalry and all the heavies flood it when the gnolls keep pressing the walls.

Have the dragons run interference on the walls at first, but don't let them be overwhelmed by griffins; they are to retreat if the griffins show signs of mobbing. If the seige is installed on towers, have an invisible dragon hold a troll or two in their mouths, and drop a couple of trolls on each tower. If it's concentrated elsewhere, the dragons are to strafe it. They shouldn't stop to engage and kill the operators, or else they'll be mobbed by griffins; just strafe to keep them from reloading or re-aiming.

Mostly it seems to be about getting the giants close enough to the walls to smash through it in good time and end this before it becomes a prelonged seige.

[Doorhandle]

OOOh! Let me put on my genreal's hat! :smallbiggrin:

Do they have catapults, and do they have anything that can survive being launched from them?

...Granted, that's my first response to anything involving a siege. :smallamused: Try this with the trolls maybe using resistance-to energy first so they don’t become flambae. Alternately, cut the trolls into chucks first, so they will have serious trouble burning all the bits, leaving the hidden piece to regenerate into a whole troll.

Also, most sieges involving staving people out, but if they have that many clerics, food and water will probably not be a problem and so that is pointless.

One fun idea would be to have the entire army dig it's way in, and undermine the city: or a strike force of elite but small/medium sized(giants won’t fit) troops dig their way in and the rest of the army attack the walls as a distraction: one of the above could work. A large army = loads of shovels, and if you're willing, you can swap out some of your minions for somthing than can burrow. If using the strike-force option, then the few casters they have, plus most of the dragons will be part of it, and they will be making a beeline for the flag- I mean, artefact. They will probably need to use all measures at their disposal to even harm the king, so it will probably be a Snatch-and-grab affair if they don’t dig a tunnel in.

Hill-giants also have rock throwing: as noted, have them be natural siege weapons in lieu of normal ones if they can keep them disciplined. They don’t have to use the clucky siege-weapon rules so they are also probably more accurate, although I don’t think there are any enchantments that can make rock-throwing better. A “rock” is any vaguely-throwable object, so launching trolls over the walls would still work.

The dragons will be needed in order to attack the gryphons and stop them form either dive-bombing people or just dropping heavy rocks from great heights and just bombing people. Giants are again useful in this regard as they're more mobile than traditional artillery, leaving less stationary to bomb. Also, they have no real accaursy penalty using rock-throwing, so they could also be used to throw stuff and kill griffons in between hurling chunks of trolls.

If they are give pause in between killing gyrphons, the dragons can use icebreath to make surgical strikes at high towers were wizards and siege-weapons lurk, or clusters of archers, and do some bombing of their own. Remember that dragons themselves are casters: That young adult white dragon of yours is going to be one of the strongest spellcasters on your side of the battlefield. Also note that huge things are good at grappling, so have a cleric ride on your super-weapon (I mean, dragon) to heal through the damage he deals, and just pick up that master of the nine and drop that sucker from 300ft up. Might not kill him, WILL ruin his day. :smallcool:

If you have 500 orgers and 1200 trolls, it’s not unfeasible that they could just smash down and beat in the walls, age-of-empires style. If this is your plan, use high-damage weapons and power-attacks for this: might not even need the ram if you can do this to the gate. Note attacking, not breaking: they will still have to grind in, no one-shot smashes here.

Also, do they have archers? Lots of them? If so, maybe have them mass-attack the king or other characters? 300 rolls, some of them are gonna crit.

[Babale]

How about having the giants throw the trolls over the walls by a gate? Do it during a push on both gates (one as a distraction) to split the defending forces. Then have the regenerating trolls get up and attack the gate from the other side.

Ridiculous as that is, it actually makes sense. Unfortunately, there's no way a 1500 pound giant is gonna be able to throw a 500 pound troll over a 30 foot high. I'll make sure to use that idea next time I lay a siege involving trolls and trebuchets, though!

Though, a troll would be a Medium Carrying Capacity for the oldest dragon. Dropping a troll onto a thick group of soldiers might be an awesome idea....

On Preview: Smashing the wall isn't going to be very practical. The first wall is thirty feet high and five feet thick; the second is a bit bigger. Even the giants are most likely going to have to head for the gates.

[Doorhandle]

Fair enguoth, have the giants smash the gates like that then.

Also, while it may be too much to throw a hole troll, they gan easily toss bits of them, leaving them to regenreate on the other side. The hard part is tearing them to bits first.

[u-b]

Day
1. They will drop some barrels of oil with some alchemist fire flasks attached, up to limit of their aerial bombing capability (dragon's carrying capacity, bags of holding available etc.) - diving from several miles, releasing at 0.5+ mile height, depending on wind conditions, trying not to engage with griffons. If not decisively countered, repeat several times.
2. Giants will possibly also bombard with throws stones, if not suffering any considerable losses doing that.

Night
1. If they have enough wealth to buy Control Weather, they will organize a torrential rain, sleet storm, fog, blizzard or some such (as appropriate).
2. Too bad there's no river near the city or most of trolls would advance that way, exerting some stealth. With no river trolls will be evenly spread among gnolls and giants (except climbing team(s), see below).
3. Close in and attack in melee when it's darkest. Making equal noise from every accessible side.
4. If they have enough gold to buy lots of wands of Spider Climb, they will use them on trolls and stone giants. With dragons known for their hoards and nowhere near dumb, I suppose, they can procure at least two. First wave of trolls takes a open-roof tower or, missing that, a section of the wall, then giants climb there to throw things from above and help trolls fend off griffon counterattack.
5. Dragons will throw lots of caltrops inside the city near that point to prevent free movement of reinforcements.
6. Giants with covered ram break both gates, gnolls try to rush in.
7. Meanwhile, those on the wall drop rope ladders to those who are not, gnolls and giants holding the wall while climbing trolls trying to occupy extra towers and wall sections.
8. Climbers attack eastern wall in 5..15 minutes, trying to exert some stealth. Dragons provide assistance.

Standing orders
1. At night all signalling is by horn, no visual signalling**.
2. Dragons will use all sorts of wands, if available, on themselves, elite troops and surrounding area (even those without actual caster level have all sorcerer spells on their class lists). These wand might include: Mage Armor, Invisibility, Mirror image, Web, Protection from Arrows, Fog Cloud*, Silent Image, Resist Energy(fire) etc. (including non-PHB material if available).

upd: *especially against ballistas and such (and Juvenile+ dragons have this as SA)
upd2: **or wands of Dancing Lights for targeting and commanding if stuck with clear sky.

P.S. Will provide details/amendements based on resources available.

[Babale]

OOOh! Let me put on my genreal's hat! :smallbiggrin:

Do they have catapults, and do they have anything that can survive being launched from them?

...Granted, that's my first response to anything involving a siege. :smallamused: Try this with the trolls maybe using resistance-to energy first so they don’t become flambae. Alternately, cut the trolls into chucks first, so they will have serious trouble burning all the bits, leaving the hidden piece to regenerate into a whole troll.
As mentioned, much as I love this idea, no catapults, or I'd just crush my way through the wall.

Also, most sieges involving staving people out, but if they have that many clerics, food and water will probably not be a problem and so that is pointless.50 clerics aren't going to feed 12,000 people for long. Starving out the city could easily be done in a month or two, but there's another reason that's a bad idea: Sanlot is the capitol city of the Schale Federation, and the other cities have sent aid. It'll take them a week or two to hike across the continent, but either way, the BBEG isn't that patient anyhow.



Hill-giants also have rock throwing: as noted, have them be natural siege weapons in lieu of normal ones if they can keep them disciplined. They don’t have to use the clucky siege-weapon rules so they are also probably more accurate, although I don’t think there are any enchantments that can make rock-throwing better. A “rock” is any vaguely-throwable object, so launching trolls over the walls would still work.My current plan is to have the stone and frost giants, whose rocks are gonna be bigger and more accurate, concentrate on taking out the siege weapons, while the hill giants throw rocks at the wall itself and the trolls take a ram to the gate. Maybe put 1/2 the trolls at each gate, all of the giants on the Eastern wall, and all of the Gnolls with ladders on the Northern wall? Oh, and I'm going to have the giants tear apart the farmhouses and small villages on the way, bring the wood, set it on fire, and throw it.


The dragons will be needed in order to attack the gryphons and stop them form either dive-bombing people or just dropping heavy rocks from great heights and just bombing people. Giants are again useful in this regard as they're more mobile than traditional artillery, leaving less stationary to bomb. Also, they have no real accaursy penalty using rock-throwing, so they could also be used to throw stuff and kill griffons in between hurling chunks of trolls.Question: How disposable do you think the dragons are? Would using, say, 1/2 of them in a suicide mission to draw as many griffons as possible into the giant line of fire be a worthy cause?


If they are give pause in between killing gyrphons, the dragons can use icebreath to make surgical strikes at high towers were wizards and siege-weapons lurk, or clusters of archers, and do some bombing of their own. Remember that dragons themselves are casters: That young adult white dragon of yours is going to be one of the strongest spellcasters on your side of the battlefield. Also note that huge things are good at grappling, so have a cleric ride on your super-weapon (I mean, dragon) to heal through the damage he deals, and just pick up that master of the nine and drop that sucker from 300ft up. Might not kill him, WILL ruin his day. :smallcool:
Oh, bringing anyone I want alive within 20 feet of the Master of the Nine is a terrible idea. He can chop of a young adult white dragon's head with one blow of his (artifact) greatsword.


If you have 500 orgers and 1200 trolls, it’s not unfeasible that they could just smash down and beat in the walls, age-of-empires style. If this is your plan, use high-damage weapons and power-attacks for this: might not even need the ram if you can do this to the gate. Note attacking, not breaking: they will still have to grind in, no one-shot smashes here. That's one use for the ogres, of whom I have 2,000, not 500. But even if they could bring down the actual fortifications, I don't think it would be practical... It would take dozens and dozens of hits with a ram, giving the good guys much time to set the ram on fire or shoot the ogres. Do you think it is feasible for them to scale the siege ladders? And should they do so before or after the mass of gnolls?


Also, do they have archers? Lots of them? If so, maybe have them mass-attack the king or other characters? 300 rolls, some of them are gonna crit.Who is they? The bad guys have archers, but not very good ones. And the king isn't going to stand on the wall and wave at them. The good guys, OTOH, are pretty much all using crossbows as secondary weapons.

[u-b]

Just noticed white dragons have "burrow 30 ft". If I get it right, they can tunnel at half speed, leaving some usable hole behind them for infiltrators to climb.

[Doorhandle]

Just noticed white dragons have "burrow 30 ft". If I get it right, they can tunnel at half speed, leaving some usable hole behind them for infiltrators to climb.

.... :biggrin:

Undermine those suckers.



(Man, I dunno if it counts for monster types, but outsiders and dragons are totally tier one.)

[Golden Ladybug]

(I'm organising this for my own thoughts as much as anything, but concise lists are always helpful)

The good guys have:


3,000 Trained Troops (Crusaders and Fighters in Med/Heavy Armor)
~36 Wizards (Approx. 10>=Level 5)
200 Cavalry (Paladins)
150 Griffons
8 Catapults
4 Trebuchets
24 Ballistas
Good Fortifications
City well designed for Defensive fighting
1,000 Buffed Orcs
PCs


And we, the Bad Guys, have:


9,000 Gnoll Foot Soldiers
1,000 Gnoll Cavalry w/Dire Hyena Mounts
2,000 Mixed Ogres and Hill Giants
1,200 Trolls
40 Stone Giants
10 White Dragons (5 Very Young, 2 Young, 2 Juvenile, 1 Young Adult)
Ladders and Possibly Tree Battering Rams
X Casters of indeterminate levels
1 BBEG


Okay, lets think about this; what advantages do we have that those dirty humans don't? The first one that springs to mind is that most of our army has Darkvision. Lets take advantage of that.

Humans aren't good at night time, especially in cities. Warfare is traditionally fought during the day, because fighting in the dark is hard, but screw that. We're evil, and have no problems with darkness. The Good Guys have their Orcs and Griffins able to work at full efficiency, but the rest of their forces are going to be caught with their pants down. After all, most people sleep at night, and even if your PCs are clever enough to rotate guard schedules so that the Orcs are keeping watch at night and the humans during the day (light blindness and all), that's still a sizeable portion of their forces asleep and scrambling into their armor. That period of panic and instability is where we strike. We have the advantage of numbers, but not of time, supplies or magic, so we need to take what we can get.

How customisable are our troops? Because, if we can, I'd like to give the Gnolls Skill Focus (Hide), cross-class ranks in said skill, and potentially even Stealthy if they have any class levels. I'd want those Hyena people creeping across the landscape in the dead of night, making their way to the foot of the walls, surrounding it on three sides (not four).

The YA White Dragon can carry 696lbs of stuff as a Light Load, and while I don't know for sure, I think that Trolls fall under that. The other dragons probably won't be able to carry Trolls by themselves, but I assume they can work together. Lets say that between them we have four airborne trolls.

Have the Dragons pick up their Trolls, fly them over the city, and drop them into the centre. Doesn't matter if these Trolls "die" of fall damage, because they'll be back on its feet in 12 seconds, and the alarm wouldn't have even been raised yet. The troll begins to cause havoc, panicking the civilians and making it difficult for the defenders to mobilise properly. This is when the others begin to act.

The Giants all charge here, tossing Rocks as they go, bombarding the walls from one direction (coincidently, the direction all your stealthy, stealthy Gnolls aren't preparing to scale with their ladders). They don't need to aim, so their lack of Darkvision won't be a problem), just hit the general areas of the walls. Havoc and Chaos is just as good as casualties in this situation.

The Ogres overtake the Giants, who are still bombarding the walls with Rocks. By now, the defenders will have started to congregate at the side that's under attack, so that they can repel these invaders, so the Ogres are mostly going to be a distraction to keep their attention there until its too late. The Tree Battering Rams are the correct play, and they should be trying to break through the gates as soon as they reach them. The Giants are still pelting rocks down, but it doesn't really matter if our Ogres get hit. With Aid Another and a Tree in hand, our ~1000 Ogres should break in after a couple of Rounds. By now, of course, the Night time defenders will have been reinforced by the sleepers, and so those Ogres will probably be overwhelmed. They should be doing their utmost to take as many of them down with them though.

Now that the Gates are open, that means the Trolls and Gnoll Cavalry have nothing in their way to stop them stampeding through into the city and meeting the Human Defenders head on. With around 3,000 threatening monstrous creatures slamming into your front door, every available man is going to be called to hold the breach, beyond those who are stuck in the middle of the city trying to put down four rampaging trolls who are still causing panic and confusion (you don't need many trolls to do that, when you've got a city of unarmed combatants to do it for you).

Which means that the Gnolls that you've positioned around the other sides of the walls aren't going to meet any meaningful resistance when they reach the top of the walls on their siege ladders. We have a lot of Gnolls, and they need to swarm over those walls like the wave of hyena-men they are. They head towards the breach, and crash into the defenders from behind. Caught between superior numbers, surprise and darkness, the defenders are at a huge disadvantage and are going to get crushed in short order.

The darkness prevents the defenders siege weapons from being used to maximum efficiency, if at all, whereas our "siege weapons" don't care about the darkness. They just need to city pointed out to them and are told "throw in that direction" They don't even need to be aiming at anything in particular, they're just throwing rocks.

Their air force can see in the dark, but they are a very small subset of the defender's forces. If they go to assist in the main battle, the Dragons gain aerial superiority because they can get on top of them and bombard them with their breath weapons, freezing fogs and natural attacks from above. Even though the Griffons win on Numbers, and even if they manage to kill all the dragons, 100 or so Griffons isn't enough to retake a city.

Likewise, the Wizard will be a pain to deal with, but since we're attacking at night, hopefully they're running low on spells. Otherwise, flood them with numbers. They've only got so many Fireballs and Lightning Bolts in them.

The PCs are the main wild card, depending on their "surprises" but then again, they're the PCs. They're wild cards almost by default. By the same token, the BBEG is a wild card for our side. What useful abilities can he provide? That's up to you really, but overall, the battle should be won by who can apply their resources best. And if you play your BBEG to the limit, he's probably the one who can do that.

So, anyway, good luck :smallbiggrin:

[Canarr]

How solid is the BBEG's control over the dragons? Commanding them is one thing, but sending them on a suicide mission is quite another...

Personally, I'd use the dragons to scout out the positions of the city's siege weaponry; presumably, they will be concentrating them around the two gates, as those are the most vulnerable points in the wall. Additionally, have them drop burning farmhouses into the city together with the giants, to keep the defenders busy putting out fires during the day. Keep the giants at the ready with rocks to give the dragons a fall-back point in case the griffons start coming out in force.

The real assault should be under cover of night, to take maximum advantage of my minions' darkvision. Unless the siege weapons are protected inside towers (which should make them easier to circumvent), I'd send the dragons on one strafing run to blast them with their breath weapon (one surprise attack from high in the air should be too quick for the defenders to scramble enough griffons to bring down any of the dragons). At the same time, I'd advance the hill giants and ogres with the majority of the gnolls, ladders and battering rams against the gates - if possible, against both at the same time, if not, against the weakest. The mounted gnolls together with one or two thousand of the regular ones, I'd keep in reserve, as well as the stone giants and trolls.

The dragons should continue to make hit-and-run attacks in order to keep the griffons busy and away from my ground troops. While the dragons can't stand up to the entire griffon force at once, if the defenders start splitting their griffon cavalry to fight at different battles, they won't have to. Also, the dragons have twice the darkvision the griffons have, and see a lot better in shadowy or sparse illumination.

Once the battle at the gate(s) is under way, I'd split the stone giant force in half and assign half of my trolls to each group. Together, they are to advance on other, presumably lighter guarded parts of the wall, where the stone giants are supposed to bombard any defenders in sight while advancing. Once they've reached the wall, and hopefully broken any resistance with rocks, the stone giants should form pyramids - two giants below should be able to heist a third one on their shoulders, who's head would then be just six feet shy of the top of the wall. Knotted ropes tied to the giants' armor, shoulders, or anywhere else, will give the trolls (600 per group) excellent climbing gear to scale the wall. Basically, the giants would be self-propelled, self-defending siege ladders, dumping a load of trolls in the defenders' back.

The mounted gnolls charge the first gate to fall.

[Yahzi]

The Darkvision is the key. Attacking at night neutralizes a lot of the advantages of a wall; i.e. shorter range for archery fire.

First load up the hill giants and ogres with ladders; they can carry a 30 foot ladder easily enough. Then wait for a night with cloud cover or no moon. The gnolls lead the giants to the walls; then send a troll up to bull-rush his way onto the wall and make space for the 9 gnolls following. That makes 1,200 avenues of attack: too many for your heroes to contain and your 1st level dudes are not going to stand up to trolls very long (even with all the bonuses for defending a wall: +1 to hit for height, 2 or 3 on one, the attacker is one-handed, partial cover for both at -4).

BTW, the defenders will not be caught with their pants down; they know there's a siege. They will be fully armored and ready; they just won't be able to shoot very far. They may also have torches or lanterns, hidden in the wall so they can't be destroyed by thrown boulders, so they won't have a darkness penalty; but they still didn't get to shoot a lot. Also, the light will make them perfect targets for the Stone giant boulders - while they may not even be able to see the giants! (Stone giants have Darkvision too!)

Your 24 ballista are going to be crushed by 40 Stone giants in about 3 combat rounds (which is 1 shot from each ballista!). The catapults and trebuchets are useless against anything that moves. If you wanted the ballista to be a threat, you need at least 240 of them.

The gnolls will make for the gates, to let the cavalry and giants in (if I were a hill giant, I wouldn't want to try and climb a ladder... ever. Give the defenders a break and keep the giants on the ground).

If your defenders were smart, they made Fireball wands and gave them to the lesser casters, which will help a lot - but 40 Stone giants are going to pulverize them pretty quickly. Without wands, however, the casters can only stop a handful of the ladder attacks.

The dragons hang out in the background to protect C&C and act as reserves.

All in all, the 3 to 1 that the defenders are outnumbered should be easily balanced by the defenses (historically, an assault would be insanely rash with those odds), but I think the trolls will prove to be unstoppable. They simply have too much concentrated strength: they can do "suicidal" bullrushes onto the enemy's weapons just to make an opening - and then get up and keep fighting.

[Nizaris]

I'll agree with Golden Ladybug's strategy for the most part. The dragons however will not be able to make it into the city's heart at the start. They might be able to make it to the walls with the trolls once the siege begins though. For the most part proceed according to his plan, have the giants throw rocks from the Northern and Western walls with a large group of gnolls prepped to assault the southern wall with ladders after the siege begins. This is when you have half the dragons drop three trolls onto the southern wall. The other half is protecting the main forces. So let's say 3,500 gnolls at the Northern and Western walls apiece and another 1,500 on the southern wall. The remaining 500 can try to climb their way at night along the cliff face and scale the Eastern wall where there will be no defenders. Dragons are to blast and retreat from the griffons, they're less disposable than the gnolls.

Fog Clouds are your friends. With the covered battering rams and ladders on the two gated walls the ogres and hill giants can easily bust their way through the gates in a few rounds so long as the stone giants continue to pummel anything that moves on the wall.

Now the last thing is darkvision isn't as definitive of a win unless it's a new moon with an overcast. The moon still provides low-light conditions which would make it harder for the stone giants to hit the griffons if they're just dropping rocks but that's why you have the dragons in the sky blasting and retreating (fly-by attack is a must as griffons have no chance of keeping up with them.)

[Duke of URL]

Pretty much agree, though I'd have the stone giants work on the city's heavy weapons first, then work at bringing down some wall sections. All of their troops won't do much good if they can't hit your important forces.

What few casters you have should slap some energy resistance (fire especially) on as many trolls as they can. Once you've breached the walls, send a few squads of trolls to act as meat shields and establish a beachhead, then let the gnolls pour in behind them to overwhelm the defenders, especially using archers, which can flood the area with more attacks than melee, since you don't have the same space limitations. Try to gain the walls to give the archers a height advantage (and better line of sight) against oncoming reinforcements.

Air superiority will likely be key. I'd try some sort of feint to draw the griffons out into the open, where squads of archers lie hidden in wait to ambush them. The sooner you can eliminate them as a threat, the faster your dragons will dominate the skies, both as destructive engines in their own right as well as troop transport (love the idea of troll-bombing).

Lack of casters is a shame, though. This type of situation has "cloudkill" written all over it. Even more so if you could sneak a Fell Animate on it.

[OracleofSilence]

In addition to night fighting, the primary advantage that the invaders have is simply, being evil. A single breach allows them to target the cities most vulnerable target: its citizens. Targeted attacks against the populous can reduce the cities moral, and destroy valuable support systems. For example, if the BBEG knows that large amounts of resin and flammable wood are being brought into the city, end large amounts of fire wielding hyena riders in S&D missions against them. Once they arrive, dismount, and order the hyenas to go on a rampage, while the Gnolls set as much on fire as they can. While stone won't burn, the supports will, and it is impossible to build an entire city of stone, and the buildings will still collapse if the wooden supports are burnt out.

Once the city is burning merrily, send in the Ogre shock troops (all ~2000 of them) straight into the teeth of the defense forces. The defensive forces will likely be shattered since Ogre's are close combat beasts particularly when compared to 1st level fighters/crusaders. With the defensive forces are occupied, use the giants to draw out the griffon riders, and lure them into ambushes by Gnoll archers, (it really doesn't matter if they are bad archers, enough of them will destroy the warbands). After the Griffons are locked into combat (since they will be swarmed with aid another attacks, targeting the griffons of course), send te dragons on troll bombing runs into area's of the battle were your forces are hard pressed. If it looks like you are going to loose, make the victory Pyrrhic. Destroy food supplies, housing, and poison wells. Kill as many citizens as possible, and destroy the warehouses. Run rampant through the merchants quarter and basically destroy what makes the city a city. Gnoll tribes are ultimately expendable. If the assault fails, pull back your essential forces (the BBEG, as many stone giants as survive, and the dragons), and rebuild your forces. Even if the PC's protect the Artifact, make sure they loose as much else as they can. You can come back later. The PC's will not be able to rebuild as fast as you can raise a new army.

[Piggy Knowles]

OK, so, here's the various ways I could see the enemy go after the city:


Via the walls (most heavily fortified and defended, few access points)
The airspace (no strong fliers, but significantly greater in number)
Underground (Least well defended, but more or less requires the service of all the white dragons, leaving the troops vulnerable to air attack)


Honestly, a three-pronged attack is going to be necessary here.

The first thing to do would be to take out the siege weapons. Those are the biggest stumbling blocks to deal with and the most effective deterrent from just straight-up storming the walls.

All of the dragons should have Flyby Attack and a great enough speed to opportunistically strike at the siege engines. I would have the three older dragons draw as many of the griffon riders forward, encroaching just to the edge of their defended space so that they can retreat if the griffon riders attack en masse, but close enough that the griffon riders must respond or risk losing a decent portion of their force to attacks of opportunity. Once they get to this "edge," they should put up fog clouds, so that the griffon riders have to guess what they are doing.

If they respond, send the remaining seven dragons to swoop in and take out the siege engines, focusing first on the catapults and trebuchets. If they don't respond, then the three older dragons will strike out at as many of the griffon riders as they can before retreating. Force the good guys to choose between losing some of their vital air force, or losing some of their vital siege engines.

Mass confusion is ideal, so have the giants send off volleys of rocks while all of this is going on.

Once a good amount of Sanlot's siege engines have been damaged or destroyed, I would switch any of the seven living younger white dragons to burrowing. Keep the three older white dragons circling outside the perimeter of the city, to prevent the griffon force from engaging the oncoming army. Again, Flyby Attack and fog cloud should really come in handy if the griffon riders get antsy and decide to attack.

Each burrowing dragon should have ten trolls and forty gnolls with them. The gnolls are manual labor to keep the tunnels from the white dragon open. The trolls are shock troops. The goal with burrowing in isn't necessarily to find entry into the city (although if they do, that's cool, too!). It's to weaken fortifications. Tunneling under major structures should do that nicely, and cause confusion within the city walls.

The main army should force the enemy to split their forces. I'd put about 60% at the gates, and 40% at the rear walls with ladders. There needs to be constant threat of breach at the gates, so that every defender at the rear walls is missed.

Next we've got cavalry, which is going to be pretty good at dealing with ground troops. No problem, cavalry can't deal with dragons. All it takes is for the Young Adult White to strafe them with a breath weapon now and then while watching the perimeter, which should set off frightful presence. The paladins *might* be high enough level to be immune to it, but you can bet that their mounts won't be.

Basically, the main advantage Team Evil has is numbers, so to best take advantage of that, they need to split the enemy's forces as much as possible. The dragons are also very difficult to deal with, especially because that Young Adult's frightful presence is going to really wreak havoc with a bunch of low-level troops.

[Kol Korran]

Hmmmmm... an interesting tactical challenge.

The main problems as i see them are :
1) getting past the walls
2) fighting in the confined space, a choke hold is a choke hold.
3) the Griffons who at these numbers are a superior air force.

main advantages:
1) Darkvision. (this battle should take place at night)
2) Better artillery: A stone giant has night vision, range increment of 180 ft, and a high AC and ability to move at ease. Ballistas has range of 120 ft, lousy AC, and can barely move, as does catapluts and Trebuchets
3) superior numbers and much more durable soldiers (at least in the hp department)

ok, my thoughts go something like this:
1) divide the force into 3 groups: two groups with about 4500 gnolls, 1000 ogres and hill giants and 20 stone giants posed towards every gate, about 400 ft from it. at this range they will be out of sight for the defenders.

a third force will include the gnoll cavalry and the trolls, which should be in between the two other forces, the dragons with them. these should stay fairly silent, and are your reserve force.

2) war drums. war drums to start and drive them crazy. alternating beats, with possible strange howls by the gnolls. psycho warfare never hurt anybody. :smallamused:

3) the stone giants start to bombard both the gates and siege weapons. this should draw either the cavalry out, or possibly the griffins. the cavalry should be dealt with by whatever troops are there (preserving the stone giants), and the griffons by the hill giants if possible and dragons. if they send no one, all the better- gates are opened and siege enegines destroyed (or mostly destroyed). if somehow they target the giants, have them move away not to be targeted by the catapults and trebuchets (keep the giants dispersed at all times). the ballista have about -6 to hit, are manned by low level soldiers, and in the dark. i'd like to see them hit AC 25

4) when the gates are about to open, (giants give the signal) the ogres + hill giants start to rush in, towards the gates. just after them the gnolls rush FAR from the gates, to the sides, with their ladders.

5) dragons attack as a group, focusing on small portions of the griffons at a time. they attack only once there is allready mayham at the walls, to avoid being shot by crossbows and the like

6) one of the fronts is bound to have an easier time than the other. once it's decided (mainly when one wall is breached) you send the reserve in to strike within, it being fresh, the forces within already tired and possibly beaten.

The Trolls take great care to preserve their numbers and health, as they are your only renewable resource. they avoid casters and/ or fire, and fight in regenerative waves: 2 trolls in front, once they are wounded they are replaced and get a chance to regenerate. they are crucial to the next stage.

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i assume that once you've breached the first set of walls most of the defense of the city has been crushed, but this would be a good place to try and regroup and assess the situation.

as i don't know the defenses of the second set of walls, i say to bring the remaining giants to bombard defenses and break down the gates, then force a rush of trolls in with one target, and one target only- kill the king. as legendary as he is, 1000+ trolls (if you preserved them right) should reach him and kill him.

[Dayzgone]

Im lovin Golden Ladybugs idea for the most part but we need to add a little insurance to the mix. Lets say we follow that plan to the “T” but the BBEG himself is going to go with the trolls (assuming the BBEG has access to feather fall) He won’t be causing any panic or doing anything destructive, instead he will pose as a scared civilian and join in with the panicked people, using any tricks he has at his disposal; he will guide the crazed people into a trap where he will use them as hostages within their own city. (With the gnolls as guards) Then simple as that, walks up to the castle walls and demands the book or else they all die, with no chance of survivors

If they say yes, then mission accomplished. If no, well know you have enough food to last the army a nice while.

[deuxhero]

I got to say undermining the city (or at least the walls) with the white dragon's burrow is a good use for it, as to my knowledge, they have no way to combat or even know of it.

Once that is done (or before you destroy the tunnel), create a second tunnel into the city.

[Downysole]

A couple of things to add:

The night time is the right time: Darkvision is only for so far (60 feet in most of these cases) so a Giant can't actually see someone on the wall from where he's going to be throwing without some sort of light. But, at close range, your guys have a huge advantage over humans (20% miss chance, can't target what they can't see, no AoO). If the defenders can't see you, you get to do all sorts of crazy stuff that big monsters with darkvision are good at that you normally hold in reserve, like grappling and bull rushing, and other things that invoke Attacks of Opportunity (negated).

Fire is your enemy: With white dragons and some frost giants on hand, and light at close quarters being bad, you should do your best to quench all flames. Since the forces saw lots of trees and flammable stuff being brought into the city, you should do your best to figure out what this is for and stop it asap. Dragons will be good at doing targeted strikes against light and fire sources, doing breath weapon attacks at max range to quench flames, etc. But as we already had posted there are many other options for your dragons so you have to choose what they do wisely.

Turn the orcs: They've turned once; you can turn them again. Then you have an army inside the enemy stronghold that will be much more capable of killing humans en masse than over-sized monsters.

The big question: What's your endgame? Even if you win the city, the big question is "How do I get what I want?" You have a big bad good guy in there as well as some other high level dudes (PCs) just waiting to pick your army apart. Even hordes have a hard time dealing with that based on morale penalties they'll take if dude after dude is cut down right in front of them. This might be outside the scope of the OP, but you're going to have to plan out the big fight as well as the siege if you want this to potentially be successful for the BBEG.

[Downysole]

Oh yeah, and don't forget Frightful Presence. Just a flyby and you can cut your enemy combatants down or spread them out considerably. Should definitely do that before you send the main press.

[Agent 451]

Check out Draconomicon. Adroit Flyby Attack and Awaken Frightful Presence are your friends :smalltongue:

Also, what is the castle sitting atop of? Dirt or solid rock? Burrow speeds typically do not work in solid rock unless there is an exception in the monster entry.

[Ingus]

Strategy developed in 3 days/nights.

Day 1
Troops arrive.
BBEG speaches: "Cr10, If you don't accept to come out and confront me in a fair duel, I'll destroy all the intelligent life here around. And that will be all your fault".
I hope Cr10 is not stupid. If he is, he will be attacked by a tunneling dragon (hopefully, at his back, cutting his retreat, sustainded by 20 or so trolls), all dragons in a swift attack, launching trolls, attacked by giants and charged by all the army.

If Cr10 is not stupid:
1. Send 1/10th of gnoll to scout and burn to ground farms and little villages (and scouting the territory to avoid being circled). Let them bring back heads, children alive to cry and implore mercy (and to be used as projectile weapons if Cr10 doesn't come out) and stuff like that.
2. Send trolls backed by artillery, dragons and followed by 1/10th gnolls in fake attacks. This will be useful in the following.

Night 1
Send gnoll scouts to scout the walls in the early night. Then send an attack each hour to the walls, everywhere.
I suggest this schedule: fake attack, fake attack, fake attack, heavy attack at gate 1 + fake attack at gate 2, fake attacks till dawn.
Attack walls and gates with fake attacks, attack only one gate with the heavy attack.
Use in this 1/3 trolls and 1/5 gnolls.
Move all troops only if a gate collapses.

Day 2
Continue as day 1.
Plus:
Taunt Cr10 to be a coward and to be responsible of all the deaths your men are bringing to the countryside.
If you're really mean, take a village, make gnolls and trolls to torture and eat alive all citizens except the one you send to the city to tell the story (and children you continue using as artillery fuel)

Night 2
Continue as night 1.
Plus:
Decide which gate you're going to attack. Say Gate North.
Use one dragon to burrow around Gate West and create such a tunnel that you may order to be destroyed just outside Gate West to undermine the ability of chivalry to go on the open space.
Use the troll bombing tactic (at night it will be difficult to contrast) to create a bridgehead which will open a gate. Throw not more than 50 trolls: the city will work in favor of invaders, which will defend the bridgehead and (hopefully) open - break - damage the gate.
If successful, charge in.

Day 3
Continue as day 2
Plus:
Move much of your troops towards Gate North, in a cheep and obvious way. Good guys are simple minded: they will think it is a trap. :smallbiggrin:

Night 3
Troll-bomb Gate West. 15 minutes after, move all remaining giants to Gate Nord and Troll-bomb it, attack it with full force and make all dragons support the attack.
This is the win or die attack.

Advanced tactics
If exterior walls are lost, don't just storm in. Take your time to completely disable gates and all useful defenses you are about to leave behind: except night 3, you'll able to repeat the attack if the castle prove itself too hard.

In any case, walls taken you should take your time to exterminate inhabitants, steal or destroy supplies and ravage the city. This will bring out the "Last Stand".

"Last Stand": being BBEG, you're a crafty bastard. Instead of confronting Cr10 on his grounds, let him storm out, facing the Horde and maybe a couple of dragons, while you, with some protection sneak into the castle to take the book.
Book taken, fly away asap - you don't want to fight stupid adventurers if you may search a book for Overwhelming Power, don't you? :smallwink:

[Loren]

Here's my master plan. There are, I think, some clever/unexpected moves, but mostly classical stuff the PC's should be expecting. Anyways, there should be plenty of chances for the PC's to interfere and be, well, heros.

phase one (psychological warfare): get large persons (giants, trolls, ogres, etc) to bang on drums and blow horns LOUDLY. Continue to do so all night. Repeat nightly for a week or so. Dragons should partol the sky and some infantly should cover the gates as a few sleeply nights may result in a forray or two. Try to rest units not involved way from the audio assault so that they can sleep. Use these rested units to guard the rest of the forces during the day.

phase two (clearing the way): one night about a week into the audio assault the dragons should make hit-and-run attacks against the war engines. These attack will take advantage of several factors. 1 the sleep deprivation on the defenders. 2 difficulty in communicating between the defenders due to the noise. 3 the keen eye sight of the dragons. By flying directly over the war engines the dragons could either freeze and shatter them or simply drop flasks of alchemist fire. (note, similar bombardments could also be used against residential areas, like barracks.)

Phase three (kill the griffons) no doubt the griffons respond to the attacks on the war engines. The dragons should lead them back to the main force where archers can assist in cutting them down (note that gnolls have darkvision)

phase four (kill the archers): feint a night assault against a gate (use rigs to move torches towards the gate (trolls may be good for this action). have the remaining dragons dive on the archers maning the walls from above

phase five (breach the gate): almost immediately after feinting to kill the archers launch a true attack against the other gate. Use explosives and/or a battering ram (DM fiat?) to breach the gate and portchilis (orges and their ilk may do well in this role). Use any remaing dragons and giant rock throwers to support this action

phase five (take the town): Everyone can share in this party. Massed trolls may be particularly useful as the defenders are likely to be reluctant to use alot of fire within the city, especialy early in the street fights. Use giant hurlers to disturpt any coordinated formations (aka phylanxes) and then unleash the gnolls into the gaps.

phase six (sack the town): while tactically this probably is ill advised so long are the castle remains in place, but try to stop an evil army after they've taken a town. During this time it would be a good idea to destroy the remaining gates, throw down battlements, and otherwise make the twon vulnerable to outside attack. Do not, however, burn the houses.

phase seven (leave): this will mean that any remaining defenders will be left in possession of a dusk of a city and weak battlements. Given the availiblity of housing in the sacked city, however, the public will undoubtedly be unwilling to remain couped up in the castle.

phase eight (return): Come back about a week later. Since the public will have moved back into their homes the defenders will once again need to defend the outer wall again. However, they are fewer in number with weaker battlements. Start up with the audio assault again (this should crush their morale).

phase nine (stealing the mcguffin): fient an attack on the gates (maybe repeat the one above). Use the gnolls with scaling ladders to come over the eastern wall once troops have been committed to the northern and western gates. At the same time send a covert strike team up the southern cliff and wall to slip into the castle and steal the prize while everyone else is looking the other way.

[OracleofSilence]

What are the BBEG's levels?

[Accordion Twome]

The walls are 30ft. tall?
trolls are about 9 feet with arms about as long as they are (if not longer).
so lets say that a troll from finger to toe is about 16ft.?

Have three or four casters cast 'summon swarm', most of the swarms are Vary harmful to a first level fighter types.
Lets say that there are three casters each able to call swarms.
What do you do?
Bats! bats! bats!
There you go three casters summon three bat swarms.
let us see here.
if engulfed by a bat swarm you take the normal damage,
make a fort save (11) or be nauseated for one round, not bad, wounding=killer unless there is a cleric or some one with a healers kit right there THEY WILL BLEED TO DEATH in less then a minute.
A bat swarm is immune to weapon damage!
unless they are waving around torches they can't touch them and since they're the good guys their casters just can't throw a fireball at them because there are soldiers in there!

Okay so the bat swarms are on top of the wall killing most of the fighters.
now you have about 500 gnolls charge their walls with ladders and 200 trolls right behind them.
If the ladders can't hold the trolls have them 'hug' the wall then the trolls behind those climb on top of the wall hugging trolls.
repeat two or three times now you have a troll ladder!

This should be done right at the gate so they climb over the wall and get it opened.

[Hazzardevil]

First of all, what is the BBEG? Aside from plan, can he do anything meaningful?

Next, my first idea is Trojan horse.
Plan 1:
Have some gnolls and dragons, "betray" the army and go inside the castle.
Have them tell the enemy that your plan is too seige the city to pieces and simply ambush any army coming to help.

While this goes on, start spreading propoganda that the king no longer values his subjects and will sacrifice everything to protect his castle.

Wait 1 day before moving on.
Have the dragons dig all around underneath the walls so the walls collapse. Then have the archers advance and shoot anyone that goes near the walls. The enemy will quickly realize that they can't fix the walls. From there simply send in ninjas to deal with the casters. Also, be sure to have spearmen protecting the archers, otherwise the cavalry can simply charge the archers so the army can sally forth in safety.

After casters are dealt with. Have archers surrounded by spearmen and other infantry. The casters are above on dragons and slowly advance on the castle. From there simply search the castle top to bottom for the book.

Plan 2: Kill the city with cantrips.
Have everyone that can cast create water fly above the castle and then cast create water. You should have at least 100 gallons of water to drown everyone. From there use dragons to freeze the water over.

[sol_kanar]

All the advice posted so far is very solid. I will just add a few ideas, that I hope won't be too redundant, because it's a very fun challenge :-)

Let's start with Golden Ladybug's recap!


(I'm organising this for my own thoughts as much as anything, but concise lists are always helpful)

The good guys have:
3,000 Trained Troops (Crusaders and Fighters in Med/Heavy Armor)
~36 Wizards (Approx. 10>=Level 5)
200 Cavalry (Paladins)
150 Griffons
8 Catapults
4 Trebuchets
24 Ballistas
Good Fortifications
City well designed for Defensive fighting
1,000 Buffed Orcs
PCs

And we, the Bad Guys, have:
9,000 Gnoll Foot Soldiers
1,000 Gnoll Cavalry w/Dire Hyena Mounts
2,000 Mixed Ogres and Hill Giants
1,200 Trolls
40 Stone Giants
10 White Dragons (5 Very Young, 2 Young, 2 Juvenile, 1 Young Adult)
Ladders and Possibly Tree Battering Rams
X Casters of indeterminate levels
1 BBEG

Dragon Tremors
The 2 Juveniles and the Young Adult can cast fog cloud as 4th-level and 5th-level sorcerers, respectively. While the rest of the casters in Team Evil are considered irrelevant, they could still provide some cover for a team of Trolls and/or Giants running towards the gates with battering rams.

Also, their ability to burrow is HUGE! As someone already pointed out, it could be used to easily enter the city. Unfortunately, the dragons don't leave tunnels behind (see spoiler'd rule from SRD).


Burrow: A creature with a burrow speed can tunnel through dirt, but not through rock unless the descriptive text says otherwise. Creatures cannot charge or run while burrowing. Most burrowing creatures do not leave behind tunnels other creatures can use (either because the material they tunnel through fills in behind them or because they do not actually dislocate any material when burrowing); see the individual creature descriptions for details.


Nevertheless, since the BBEG knows the city, he could actually dispatch ALL the Dragons to burrow under the walls and strike strategic targets, during the night, simultaneously. Since the defenders have no way to follow them, they could rise to the surface, strike hard and immediately retreat underground.

Even better, the BBEG could send a token force to attack one of the gates, and have ALL the Dragons strike the other one, killing the defenders and opening the city doors. They could create even more confusion with the fog clouds.

Nevertheless, if the terrain around the city is rocky, this plan does not work (see spoiler'd description of burrowing movement).

Full Metal Giants
A Troll or Giant in medium or heavy armor + shield is also terrifying. Their AC rises in the stratosphere: you could have 23 to 27 for Trolls or Hill Giants with decent armor and large shields. The average defender would probably need a roll of 20 to hit them.

Still, maybe the BBEG lacks the time and the resources to build armors: but if he manages to do so for even a small elite force, it could be an extreme improvement against the defenders. I would personally protect Trolls, making them even harder to kill.

Knock-knock-knocking on Heaven's Doors (with rocks)
Hill Giants can throw rocks, even if slightly less efficiently than Stone Giants. Nevertheless, what would happen if (let's say) 100 Hill Giants managed to throw a rock each against one of the main doors of the city? The average damage would be 2d6+7 = 14. They would probably miss only on a 1 (static Huge object has an AC around 1), so 95 of them would hit.

What are the doors made of? If they are made of iron/steel (hardness 10, 30 hit points/inch of thickness), they will take 95 * (14 - 10) = 380 damage in the first volley, probably being damaged beyond repair, since they should be thicker than 12 inches to survive. And that is the first volley, with 1/10th of the total of giants. Of course, if the doors are made of adamantine, that makes them virtually unbreakable with this tactic (hardness 20).

In the first post, Babale said:

The city walls are 30 feet high and wide enough to be nearly impossible to breach.

Let's compute! Stone has a hardness of 8, with 15 hit points / inch of thickness. Using the above volley of 100 giants, the walls would take 95 * (14 - 8) = 570 damage/round. They would have to be more than 38 inches thick to survive the first volley.

I guess that the attackers could split their rock-throwing monsters into two groups (of about 500 each), and then let them throw rocks at will near the two gates. Even if one of the two groups would probably get decimated by ranged weapons and spells, I think that at least one of the walls near the gate would probably collapse: two rounds of rocks from 500 Hill Giants are 2 * 475 * (14 - 8) = 5,700 damage. The walls should be thicker than 380 inches to resist two rounds.

Hill Giants can Jump
Also, the huge amount of rocks that will pile under the walls could later be used as a ramp to help the Large creatures cross the walls. Large creatures have a vertical reach of 16 ft, and they can easily jump 2 ft even without a running start (DC 16), so that leaves them needing "only" 12-14 feet of rocks piled up to use as a base for a jump :-D

Ok, maybe this last one is a little bit far-fetched, but picturing the Giants happily jumping over the walls is very entertaining :-)

EDIT: numbers (hopefully) corrected.

[Babale]

Dragon Tremors
The 2 Juveniles and the Young Adult can cast fog cloud as 4th-level and 5th-level sorcerers, respectively. While the rest of the casters in Team Evil are considered irrelevant, they could still provide some cover for a team of Trolls and/or Giants running towards the gates with battering rams.
Yes, once I thought about it I realized how HUGE of an advantage it is too cast Obscuring Mist. The enemy probably has a grand total of 500+ level 1-3 Clerics and Sorcs, all of whom can cast Obscuring Mist. So even though originally I planned to just account for them by assuming they do their little bit of healing, I realize now that a better use is going to be blocking off half the battlefield with fog.


Burrow: A creature with a burrow speed can tunnel through dirt, but not through rock unless the descriptive text says otherwise. Creatures cannot charge or run while burrowing. Most burrowing creatures do not leave behind tunnels other creatures can use (either because the material they tunnel through fills in behind them or because they do not actually dislocate any material when burrowing); see the individual creature descriptions for details.
As the DM, I'm ruling that the dragon can be followed by a bunch of gnolls with picks and wooden planks. Making a tunnel is going to be possible, though only the largest dragon can make it big enough to be followed.


Nevertheless, since the BBEG knows the city, he could actually dispatch ALL the Dragons to burrow under the walls and strike strategic targets, during the night, simultaneously. Since the defenders have no way to follow them, they could rise to the surface, strike hard and immediately retreat underground.I'm not sure if sending all ten dragons is such a good idea... I mean, they're going to be very hard pressed to take out the enemy's aerial forces (Not through direct combat, of course; but I'm going to need at least a few dragons if I'm going to bait a trap).


Even better, the BBEG could send a token force to attack one of the gates, and have ALL the Dragons strike the other one, killing the defenders and opening the city doors. They could create even more confusion with the fog clouds.This could also work, but the PCs are probably smart enough to go there themselves, along with as many Griffon Riders as are left. So the dragons might open the gate long enough for the enemy to come in, but they'd be toast; and of all the units, the ones who the BBEG does not have complete control over is the dragons.



Full Metal Giants
A Troll or Giant in medium or heavy armor + shield is also terrifying. Their AC rises in the stratosphere: you could have 23 to 27 for Trolls or Hill Giants with decent armor and large shields. The average defender would probably need a roll of 20 to hit them.I do want to make this winnable for the PCs, if incredibly difficult. :tongue: I won't armor most of the giants, but having the leaders of the giant tribe be wearing armor is both acceptable, and a good challenge for the PCs. A stone giant or three in Breastplate and with a greatsword instead of the customary club should be more than deadly enough.


Knock-knock-knocking on Heaven's Doors (with rocks)
Hill Giants can throw rocks, even if slightly less efficiently than Stone Giants. Nevertheless, what would happen if (let's say) 100 Hill Giants managed to throw a rock each against one of the main doors of the city? The average damage would be 2d6+7 = 14. They would probably miss only on a 1 (static Huge object has an AC around 1), so 95 of them would hit.The problem is, Sanlot is in a lush, grassy valley. The Horde is coming from the mountains, so they probably lugged a few hundred decent boulders in carts. And they have whatever flaming pieces of farmhouses they want to steal. But certainly not enough to sustain an assault on the walls.


What are the doors made of? If they are made of iron/steel (hardness 10, 30 hit points/inch of thickness), they will take 95 * (14 - 10) = 380 damage in the first volley, probably being damaged beyond repair, since they should be thicker than 12 inches to survive. And that is the first volley, with 1/10th of the total of giants. Of course, if the doors are made of adamantine, that makes them virtually unbreakable with this tactic (hardness 20). The doors are made of steel, and are just about a foot thick. Throwing rocks at them is certainly a possibility, yes, but a battering ram wielded by giants should be able to do it even faster, and without filling the gate with hundreds of rocks.


Lots of you asked about the BBEG. Well, she's a Crusader using mostly White Raven maneuvers, but corrupted versions of them. She's going to be somewhere between 5 and 10, depending on how much the PCs level up before the battle. I want her to be a level or two higher, but not as strong as the king. Further, her corrupted maneuvers are going to be more powerful than standard White Raven maneuvers.

[Mikeavelli]

- Make Trolls your shock troops whenever possible. Regeneration is HUGE, and you can assault the city with effectively no losses. Have giants hang back with rocks, and fling them at defending Archers/wizards/anyone with fire or acid.

- Have a few squads of Gnolls mixed in with the trolls, but hanging back from the actual fighting. Their whole purpose in the battle is to drag unconscious trolls away from the front lines to regenerate, be backup archers, and act as spotters for the giants to mark who has fire/acid.

- Basically, if the bad guys can eliminate all sources of fire damage from the defenders arsenal, they have won. Troll losses other than that are inconsequential, because they'll just grow back.

[Malroth]

Using flyby attack have the oldest dragon strafe a wall to clear it of archers then drop a fog cloud or obscuring mist benind it as it flees to escape the gryphon retaliation. Once you've garuanteed a few minutes have your hill giants hurl boulders at the wall which should still hit despite the fog because its a wall. A 5 foot thick wall will have only 900 hp and will colapse after an average of 150 rocks, which you can have the trolls run in and retrieve in between volleys.

[Mithril Leaf]

Do we have a few shaper psions? Most any level will do, although higher is better.

[Slipperychicken]

Use Dragons to burrow under gates, use the resulting tunnels to transport troops to the other side, assault gate from both sides. Taking it shouldn't be too hard then. Alternatively, dragons burrow under gates, then get the smashy-types to kill the gates from underground, where the Good guys can't strike back (or cast Knock, targetting a single door per casting to fit the volume limit). Coordinate this well, so your ground troops get to the gate right as it falls.


If you know of any large dirt-floor buildings near the walls, burrow there and occupy it quietly, then bust out when the time is right and head for the walls to connect with the main group.


For moving troops through the tunnels, remember there aren't explicit limits to the numbers you can cram into a square, as long as you use the squeezing rules (ask yourself: Does each gnoll really need a 5x5ft privacy bubble?).

[Tvtyrant]

Equip all of the Gnolls with Tower Shields for the approach to the fortress, since the shields give all attacks against them a 50% miss chance. The Gnolls don't need to attack anyone till they are at the walls, so they can walk right up at night time. They drop the shields and use two handers when they are in melee.

[Phaederkiel]

There is one question and one comment:

the question: are there any smaller regenerators that the giants could chuck over the wall? I love the technique and am probably going to use it my next session (which, as chance has it, is very similar to yours). One could also try to transport more trolls via dragon with bag of holdings. Or you could chuck gnolls with little parachutes.

the comment: Are you sure this is anywhere near the challenge rating your pcs could tackle? I mean, My pcs are 14th lvl and I use less attackers...okay, they have only 200 defenders on their side, but still...

And I want my players to manage all the army on their side. Because of this, i wanted to keep my numbers more manageable. So my players can choose were to employ their considerable strenght, where to employ the strength of nsc. I will roll random results (weighted by the strength of the units) to determine the outcome of the npc battles.

How do you want to do this? are these battles scripted? how much can they change with clever tactics?

[Hellwyrm]

The Horde is coming from the mountains, so they probably lugged a few hundred decent boulders in carts. And they have whatever flaming pieces of farmhouses they want to steal. But certainly not enough to sustain an assault on the walls.
The doors are made of steel, and are just about a foot thick. Throwing rocks at them is certainly a possibility, yes, but a battering ram wielded by giants should be able to do it even faster, and without filling the gate with hundreds of rocks.

But throwing rocks at a 30ft thick wall to break it is just so fun :smallbiggrin:.
Ok, lets do this. (I have stolen/repeated ALOT of your maths sol_kanar, so props to you :smallredface:)

The wall is colossal, so lets treat its AC as 10 - 8 (size modifier) - 5 (inanimate object), so the giants hit if their roll hits AC-3 (if negative AC is even possible, I'm not actually sure so we'll go with the assumption that it is).

Hill giants have a bonus of +8 to throwing rocks, so they can throw the maximum 5 range increments and still have a guaranteed hit (except for natural 1s of course). So they can sit 600 feet away, still hit on everything except for a natural one, pretty much far enough that the defenders will only hit on a 20 (except for seige weapons)

If the walls are 30 feet thick, that's 360 (30*12) inches. Therefore the walls have hit points equal to 360*15 hit points, which is 5,400 hp, with a hardness of 8.
Therefore with an average damage of 14 (average 2d6+7 = 14), which becomes 6 when hardness is applied, 5400/6 only 900 rocks must be thrown by Hill Giants to breach the wall.
As you have 1,000 Hill Giants, and only 5% will miss (on a natural one), 950 will hit in one round. Therefore in one round, by RAW, you can breach a 10ft tall by 10ft long by 30ft thick walls with rocks thrown by the Hill Giants.

In the monster description of Hill Giants, it specifically says that they carry 2d4 throwing rocks. They therefore carry enough rocks to demolish the wall in (average of 2d4 = 5) different places.

This is probably a bit difficult for the PC's, but if you just save this tactic for the very end and only use it once at the very end for a last ditch attempt to breach the walls by the BBEG and his army, it could make a good finisher.

[sol_kanar]

You know, re-reading all the forces in the field, I have a concern: if your world (or at least this area) is supposed to be low-level, aren't the 1,000 Hill Giants a bit too much?

As CR 7, with high AC, reach and serious damage, two or three of them could probably tear even the King apart (well, they could if he hadn't the artifact sword; but what if they entered a grapple and/or disarmed him?): one of them could probably kill tens to hundreds of average defenders and live to tell the tale.

I am under the impression that, once a breach in the walls is opened, the Hill Giants could merrily run towards it while slaughtering everything on their path, and most of them would survive, especially if a first wave of gnolls managed to arrive near the walls and engage the defenders.



This could also work, but the PCs are probably smart enough to go there themselves, along with as many Griffon Riders as are left. So the dragons might open the gate long enough for the enemy to come in, but they'd be toast; and of all the units, the ones who the BBEG does not have complete control over is the dragons.


I see. I think that the strongest options for dragons would be escaping through burrowing as soon as the defenders gather. From what I recall, there is basically no way for the defenders to follow them underground, especially if they don't leave a tunnel behind like the burrowing ability description seems to indicate.



This is probably a bit difficult for the PC's, but if you just save this tactic for the very end and only use it once at the very end for a last ditch attempt to breach the walls by the BBEG and his army, it could make a good finisher.

You know, I like this idea: it's very cinematic and it could fit the relatively short temper of the BBEG.

After a few (failed) attempts at taking the city in a clever way (burrowing dragons, trolls from above and so on), on the second or third night the BBEG could simply say: "Ok, f**k it, THROW ROCKS AT THE DAMN WALL UNTIL IT BREAKS, THEN SWARM IN AND DESTROY EVERYTHING ON YOUR PATH!"

The assault might be epic indeed, with rocks falling everywhere, gnolls trying to enter the breaches, giants stomping on everyone. In the middle of this chaos, the BBEG could try to cut through the city with a small elite force (armored giants and/or trolls) to steal the book.

[Canarr]

But throwing rocks at a 30ft thick wall to break it is just so fun :smallbiggrin:.
Ok, lets do this. (I have stolen/repeated ALOT of your maths sol_kanar, so props to you :smallredface:)

The wall is colossal, so lets treat its AC as 10 - 8 (size modifier) - 5 (inanimate object), so the giants hit if their roll hits AC-3 (if negative AC is even possible, I'm not actually sure so we'll go with the assumption that it is).


One problem: if you want every giant to hit the same 10ft x 10ft piece of wall, that won't be Colossal anymore, will it? I don't have the numbers available, but the necessity to hit the exact same spot every round should make targetting slightly more difficult.

Still, the idea of 1,000 hill giants just lining up, waiting for their turn, is kinda funny :smallbiggrin:

[Babale]

the comment: Are you sure this is anywhere near the challenge rating your pcs could tackle? I mean, My pcs are 14th lvl and I use less attackers...okay, they have only 200 defenders on their side, but still...
[...]
How do you want to do this? are these battles scripted? how much can they change with clever tactics?With clever tactics, they can hold the city, or at least weaken the horde enough that the city's allies can help retake it. But I doubt that will happen. Odds are, the city will fall. And that's fine; the PCs are there for damage control, because even if the city falls, the BBEG doesn't win unless he grabs the McGuffin.

A horde much like this one formed 100 years ago and took nearly the entire continent before its leader died of disease. So the horde is supposed to be overpowered; helping The Resistance may very well be a future subplot.


You know, re-reading all the forces in the field, I have a concern: if your world (or at least this area) is supposed to be low-level, aren't the 1,000 Hill Giants a bit too much?There aren't 1000 hill giants; there are 2000 hill giants and ogers. 90% of that force is ogres, not hill giants.


As CR 7, with high AC, reach and serious damage, two or three of them could probably tear even the King apart (well, they could if he hadn't the artifact sword; but what if they entered a grapple and/or disarmed him?): one of them could probably kill tens to hundreds of average defenders and live to tell the tale.Yes, the hill giants are probably the most dangerous force of the field, along with the trolls. But that's supposed to happen.

[sol_kanar]

There aren't 1000 hill giants; there are 2000 hill giants and ogers. 90% of that force is ogres, not hill giants.
Yes, the hill giants are probably the most dangerous force of the field, along with the trolls. But that's supposed to happen.

Oh, ok! Sorry, I missed the percentages. Then, the strategy of "throwing rocks at it until it breaks" becomes much less viable :-D

Still, 200 Hill Giants might be enough to "rock out" one of the gates as some sort of "final assault".

One more information that I think might be interesting: are the griffon riders more equipped for melee or distance? Can they out-range rocks thrown by giants? In your opinion, is the griffon cavalry a serious menace for the Evil Army, if they keep raining arrows from the distance?