Siege Weapons Campaign

[Karoht]

I wanted to gather some opinions and potentially some advice on doing a campaign that centered more on using Siege Weapons rather than good ol' swords and spells. Or at the very least, how to make Siege Weapons more prominent.

A friend of mine has been telling me the rules for operation of Siege Weapons such as catapults and ballista, and while I'm a little shakey on all goings on, I think I could make a half decent story around a few Siege Weapon crews, if I can find the right badguys.

I figure big targets like Giants and the like, very low CR's, avoiding the big army VS army clash, the toughest thing I want to throw at the party would MAYBE be a Dragon. Chances are, this will be a low magic setting.

Has anyone done this? Any mistakes to avoid? Does DnD just not work well this way? Any recommended Siege Weapons to stick to? Any that just don't work well? Am I just plain crazy?

Thoughts?

[unseenmage]

I wanted to gather some opinions and potentially some advice on doing a campaign that centered more on using Siege Weapons rather than good ol' swords and spells. Or at the very least, how to make Siege Weapons more prominent.

A friend of mine has been telling me the rules for operation of Siege Weapons such as catapults and ballista, and while I'm a little shakey on all goings on, I think I could make a half decent story around a few Siege Weapon crews, if I can find the right badguys.

I figure big targets like Giants and the like, very low CR's, avoiding the big army VS army clash, the toughest thing I want to throw at the party would MAYBE be a Dragon. Chances are, this will be a low magic setting.

Has anyone done this? Any mistakes to avoid? Does DnD just not work well this way? Any recommended Siege Weapons to stick to? Any that just don't work well? Am I just plain crazy?

Thoughts?

I don't know about using it for an entire campaign but I built a Warfoged NPC once who had a magic ballista built into himself as an Embedded Warforged Component. He couldn't load it himself but he was a commander in a military and his squad would load bolts into him while he posed heroically, of course the posing was also necessary to use the ballista so it was doubly amusing.


You could consider using Mobs (DMG2) of creatures in place of single units to increase the utility of the siege weapons.

Also, there's a Siege Golem in the Cityscape book.

[Karoht]

I was thinking that each player (4-6) would command a siege weapon with the support of a crew.
If not, maybe make it 3 weapons with 2 players and X number of additional crew members.

Siege Golem sounds awesome!

[Averis Vol]

What could be fun is to have the PC's as part of a specialist force, whether it be military or mercenary, that focuses in infiltrate then destroy tactics. So they will be deployed by their commanding officer to infiltrate the enemy country as simple travelers or what have you, and while there they will be collecting information and figuring out possible routes and strategies to get their actual siege force in. Go town by town and have the siege weapons come in when it's time to storm the local castle. From the outskirts they wont have much resistance (low level territory) but as they get closer to the capital, they will need to be more discreet with their gatherings, maybe even developing technology so they can disguise their rigs.

The reason I mention to do it like this is because if it's only siege weaponry, then at a point their builds start to become insignificant as they will just be maxing out profession siege engineer. this way, if they have a rogue or spellcaster, they will get a chance to do their thing with the info gathering and espionage. Basically, don't just turn it into "okay, fire your catapult. it hits. roll damage....." because while fun for a bit, theres no real way to be creative while doing this*. Also as a reminder, the siege engines should only go as far as opening up the castle, you can't really get into a courtyard with a trebuchet.

*unless this is how your group likes to play, then totally go for it and ignore me.

[Karoht]

Castles and opposing armies are probably out.
Again, I'm thinking very mundane force VS something big and meaty stomping around the countryside where it shouldn't be.

Since Traps would probably be a huge advantage as well, a Trap Rogue and a Trap Ranger might be in order. Artillery is going to need spotters, and the traps provide a nice final line of defense. Both could act as snipers as well. The rest of the party I'm unsure about.
And yes, I would have a few skirmishes occur where the catapult is less likely, or one catapult gets rushed/overrun, so the ability to fight without the Siege Weapon is still critical.

This campaign would be very short, I wouldn't expect anyone to get over level 5 or 6 really. Maybe 4-6 sessions, tops.

[00dlez]

If you haven't already, check out Heros of Battle, lots of new battlefield ideas including uses of siege weapons.

I would discourage running "shoot the catapult at the giant" type adventures, though. When I think of that, it seems far too much like point-n-click/roll playing. Roll to hit, reload, repeat. It removes a lot of battlefield tactics that a typical party will face and also removes most threats (attacking from 200 yards is rarely dangerous) and removes interaction with the enemies.