Tavern Siege (need ideas)

[carrdrivesyou]

So my group is going to have to defend a tavern from small part of an army, we are guessing about 30 or so (some guards, likely a berserker or two, as well as a couple veterans). We have a few supplies we can use, and about a day to set up defenses. The tavern in question has a small second floor on the back half (on the opposite side of the building from the road), a well on the side, and a stable for about a half dozen horses on the other. It's about 30ft from the road, and 200ft from the treeline, although there are a few trees scattered around the field. Our ranger has run to get reinforcements that we hope will arrive by the time of the battle. Oh, we are using Gritty Realism rules, so 8 hours for a short rest, a week for a long one.

Our resources:
1. plenty of wood from the road block we took down
2. plenty of water in the well
3. wizard has the Mold Earth cantrip
4. a dozen pints of oil
5. plenty of food
6. enough arrows and crossbow bolts to fight with.
7. we all have weapons and armor, very little of which is magical (my fighter, the cleric, and the artificer have magic weapons)
8. Most of us only used a few short rest abilities
9. Most of us are at full or close to full HP

Best we can figure, their leader probably has class levels, guessing barbarian. Most of them are underdark races, with drow making heavy use of Faerie fire. The DM does not pull punches, and this will be our 3rd fight against this particular army, although the first time against this particular leader. These guys' idea of negotiations are for us to surrender so we can be executed. So that's what we are looking at.

Our group is as follows:
Loxodon Chronurgist 4 (has a goblin wizard sidekick)
Dragonborn Fighter 2/Celestial Warlock 2 (me)
High Elf Battlesmith 4 (Iron Defender intact and fully healed)
Leonin Tempest Cleric 4
Aarakocra Horizon Walker (currently out to get reinforcements)

We also have some NPCs to help us:
Dwarf Veteran (a drunk, but still damned effective)
Gith of some sort (unsure of stat block, but seems like an assassin)
Wood Elf Thug
High Elf Scout
Tabaxi sidekick (expert?)
A pair of guards (one firbolg, one kenku)


Best ideas so far are to mold earth a trench around the building, use the wood from the palisades to make the pit full of spikes, put some archer slots on the roof, and use some oil for battlefield control, denying some areas and separating SOME forces. We are going to basically minecraft up some dirt around the first floor, and cover the rest of the building in mud, so it doesn't catch fire so easily.

But...that's about all we came up with. Any ideas would be helpful. Otherwise, we are just gonna have to pray.

[RogueJK]

We have a few supplies we can use, and about a day to set up defenses.
...
wizard has the Mold Earth cantrip


A full day of Mold Earth is like 14,400 castings, or 72,000 cubic feet of earth that can be moved.

That's a hell of a lot of battlefield preparation, and a lot more than just "digging a trench". :smallbiggrin:

[Amnestic]

Best ideas so far are to mold earth a trench around the building, use the wood from the palisades to make the pit full of spikes, put some archer slots on the roof, and use some oil for battlefield control, denying some areas and separating SOME forces. We are going to basically minecraft up some dirt around the first floor, and cover the rest of the building in mud, so it doesn't catch fire so easily.

But...that's about all we came up with. Any ideas would be helpful. Otherwise, we are just gonna have to pray.

Mold Earth is really going to be MVP here.

All of that seems like a good plan. Given the distance from the road/treeline I'd also consider making and concealing pits drops dotted around the area at random. You could conceivably make them very deep with mold earth but even 10' on its own is enough to guarantee fall damage, going prone, and potentially requiring a skill check to escape. You don't need to include spikes if you don't have sufficient wood to do so, it's just to delay and take them out of the battle for a turn or two, along with funneling those who don't fall in down narrower chokes which slow them down. You might even want to specifically create a section where they can move through normally+safely.

On that note, tearing up the battlefield itself to create difficult terrain will slow them drastically.

Not clear if your wizard has Darkness as a spell but that could be useful for luring enemies into the traps. Can't dodge what they can't see.

With sufficient prep you could create a 5' tall maze of walls around the tavern, essentially funneling them one-by-one into a killbox unless they try to climb over - at which point they get shot by readied ranged attacks.

[NRSASD]

Any hunting traps, ball bearings, or caltrops available? They can be great for controlling access to the building by planting these at windows and side entrances.

What are the enemy trying to do in this engagement? Seize control of the inn, kill your party, etc.? Knowing their objectives will really help determine your options.

Never overlook the humble pit trap. A 10' pit alone is fine, but it's so easy to cover it with a table cloth, pin it in place with cutlery, and coat it with a light but thorough layer of dirt.

Don't hesitate to ignite those oil slicks with flaming arrows or spells at the opportune moment.

Place trenches near the entrances so fighters and the like can push the attackers into them. If you knock them into a pit, they're out of the fight for at least a round.

Reach weapons like pikes are going to be very useful. Give all your unreliable NPC help (the guys you would hesitate to put on the front lines) pikes, and they can provide extra d10s of damage every round at no risk to themselves.

[carrdrivesyou]

Any hunting traps, ball bearings, or caltrops available? They can be great for controlling access to the building by planting these at windows and side entrances.

What are the enemy trying to do in this engagement? Seize control of the inn, kill your party, etc.? Knowing their objectives will really help determine your options.

Never overlook the humble pit trap. A 10' pit alone is fine, but it's so easy to cover it with a table cloth, pin it in place with cutlery, and coat it with a light but thorough layer of dirt.

Don't hesitate to ignite those oil slicks with flaming arrows or spells at the opportune moment.

Place trenches near the entrances so fighters and the like can push the attackers into them. If you knock them into a pit, they're out of the fight for at least a round.

Reach weapons like pikes are going to be very useful. Give all your unreliable NPC help (the guys you would hesitate to put on the front lines) pikes, and they can provide extra d10s of damage every round at no risk to themselves.

We sadly do not have reach weapons, as none of the PCs use them, and the NPCs didn't bring them. We do have some tarps we can use for pit traps. I'll definitely add that. We did not bring much with us because we honestly didn't expect to win the first fight when we took the tavern back over. (it was 20 of them vs our 11)

[Toadkiller]

Watch the Firefly episode “Heart of Gold”. Especially if you think the DM has.

The suggestions above are all solid. You want to split up and slow down the enemy. If they aren’t able to focus fire and you can then that’s good. Also have cover set up with designated fall back positions. Remember sunlight sensitivity - the drow aren’t going to want to attack during the day. So be prepared to have light sources that provide you the best opportunities.

[NRSASD]

Shame about the lack of supplies, but oh well. One last thought that occurred to me is broken glass. Set it into the window sills of any entrance the enemy tries to enter. Broken glass almost certainly won't penetrate boots, but if they grab onto it with their bare, unprotected hands...

Also, a whole bunch of nails sticking out of a board. Poor man's caltrops.

[carrdrivesyou]

Shame about the lack of supplies, but oh well. One last thought that occurred to me is broken glass. Set it into the window sills of any entrance the enemy tries to enter. Broken glass almost certainly won't penetrate boots, but if they grab onto it with their bare, unprotected hands...

Also, a whole bunch of nails sticking out of a board. Poor man's caltrops.

This is pretty good. I'll double check and see what we can make!


Watch the Firefly episode “Heart of Gold”. Especially if you think the DM has.

You get Inspiration for Firefly references!

[Kane0]

If all else fails, weaken load bearing beams of the tavern to collapse walls when you’re breached. The poor souls too close are squished under debris and you get both a cloud of dust and an opening to stage your retreat. Bonus points for leaving your opposition with no position to take over.

Edit: oh, and dont forget burning oil and whatnot. Gives you extra visibility and causes damage!

[Corran]

If most of them are underdark races as you say, then they'll probably attack at night. Check if any of your NPC allies has something like the daylight spell which would put them at disadvantage.

If they are smart they could choose to try and send a small force first to catch you by surprise, and they can always have a some archers try and shoot you from where you wont be able to see, so lighting (torches, the light spell) the area around the tavern would go a long way for trying to negate such scenarios (also for learning what exactly you'll be up against; more on that later). Something like dancing lights would be good to have in your back pocket should you need it too.

You've got a lot to worry about, but I would seriously worry if they have a caster (shatter) or any kind of siege equipment. Stuff like that could eliminate your advantage from fighting from inside a well barricaded tavern (good thinking using mud to protect against fire). You've got to try and find out if they do have something like that (send someone to scout during the daytime, if you know where they are coming from). And if they do, well, you must find a way to deal with that (kill the caster/ break the siege equipment), probably by hiding one or more allies outside the tavern and near where you'd expect them to set up shop for a quick hit and run (ideally back inside the tavern) mission (anything that improves stealth, movement and spikes damage, is your friend in this scenario).

[NRSASD]

Please let us know how the battle turns out!

[carrdrivesyou]

Please let us know how the battle turns out!

Well, we set up our defenses as discussed above, everything but the archer bits on top and the weakening of the supports. Our ranger got back with reinforcements, another 10 guards, so we have mostly evened the numbers up...

Downside is that we are fairly certain that their leader is a berserker, not a barbarian, but they have a mage (as the stat block) on their side. So we are super concerned about explosions rocking our team apart. We have our initiative rolled up, and our DM is being nice, letting the Ranger make an escape plan for us, instead of leaving us in a box with one entrance/exit. Will keep you posted.

[Toadkiller]

Focus fire on the mage.

Die well!

[Foxhound438]

Just a trench might be too little if it's just going to be jumped over or climed through.

If you can, try to build something of a wall around most of your tavern, and have one area partially open as an "easy entrance". put up some chest high barricades with just enough room for one person to walk between, and then have some of your tankier party members or NPC's stand in the openings. I don't know how big your area is, but it would look something like this, scaled to suit


XXXXXX..X..X..X..X..XXXXXXXX
X..........O..O.O..O.O.............X <-- the "O"'s in this row are your characters or NPC's, with however many openings you feel you want
X.......................................X
X............(your base)............X
X........................................X
X........................................X
X........................................X
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

You can probably build a pretty effective wall using mold earth to move all the dirt out of a square into the space just closer to your base (results in a 10' vertical difference), and use some amount of wood on both sides to keep it in place. Basically, the enemies will tend to funnel into the seemingly easy entrance and be met with a surprisingly tight chokepoint. It's kind of important to not have the barriers there too high, so that someone farther back can shoot arrows at weaker targets outside. Usually you would have some backup persons nearby to take the place of someone who gets too injured to stay, or move to attack anyone who jumps the wall. You don't want to just barricade yourselves into a building, as you would probably find the place getting burned down around you. Probably make some windows in the upper floor of the tavern all around, not just on the side toward the opening, in case enemies break the choke.

[Dork_Forge]

Besides the obvious reinforcing your position (boarding up doors and windows, making barricades and trenches etc.) you could use the time and Mold Earth in conjuction with the Drunk Dwarf's natural knowledge to create sapper's tunnels. Tunnel underneath an area you'll force them into to attack via your fortifications and when they're all in place collapse the floor under them with a couple of castings or pulling out the tunnels supports. Bonus points and damage if you use some of your spare wood to create a spiked pitfall, since the floor is still intact until you manually destroy it, they hsouldn't be able to spot much since it's not just a covered pit, it's a normal stretch of undisturbed dirt.

Additional uses for the tunnel include an escape route as well as tunnels that allow you and allies to pop up in flanking/rear attack positions. The discrepency in numbers doesn't seem that large, with ample prep time you guys should beast this!

[Zirconia]

You want to abuse the heck out of cover rules. Anyone shooting arrows at the opposing army should be doing so from arrow slits, built of wood with a mud cover or just built from the earth moved with the cantrip. Cover the lower floor outer walls with dirt, doors, windows, everything, so they can't get in that way, and your arrow slits are on the roof in a wall around the outside rim of the roof and in the second floor addition.

Make sure THEY don't have any cover, so take down the stables, or build another fighting platform on top like at the inn. The latter has the advantage that the enemy mage can't just blow up one group with a Fireball. Worst case, even if he has fireball, you have +5 on the Dex saves with 3/4 cover. Stay spread out on the roof because of that mage. Down side to a second platform is if they attack from the far side of one building, they have complete cover from the other. Anything to make the terrain difficult out there gives you more time to shoot them as they move.

They will definitely attack at night, so have ways to get light sources out there where they are, or prepare to have guys shooting at you with Advantage because they are standing 80' away in the dark and you can't see them with your 30' radius torchlight. Oil soaked rags wrapped around kindling, say, that you can throw with a large sling or launch somehow. Maybe even fire piles you can light with flaming arrows when the attack comes. The Aarakocra can drop light sources, but he'd better stay high up, if they have 10 archers even shooting at disadvantage for range some will hit.

If one of you has the Light cantrip, put it on the tail of an arrow, wrap the tail in cloth, fasten the cloth to the bow, and shoot the arrow to where the bad guys are if needed. That way it only lights up as the shot goes off, so the archer doesn't give themselves away.

Be prepared with pusher forks to push down ladders, if they try to use that to get up top where you are. Be prepared to argue that trying to climb a crumbly dirt wall will be hard, and you may need to be ready to fight anyone who does climb it up to the roof. Having a fallback channel to the actual second story part of the inn as per Foxhound438's suggestion can work there.

[Unoriginal]

Is the goal to defend the tavern itself, or the people?

[nickl_2000]

You can also set traps with mold earth. Mine underneath an area a good way down, when there are enemies on top of it cast mold earth on the space they are on and drop them as far as you like. This does damage since they don't expect it and it's harder to avoid. Then, when you are done you still have a pit trap available to control the battlefield.

The Wizard should be firebolting every piece of siege weaponry that shows up. With 120ft range, they should be able to do some serious damage before they are even close enough to be used.

Continually have unseen servants available. They will be great to drop oil, light arrows, push siege ladders, and trigger traps. That is effective force increases without to much extra effort.

The Gust of Wind spell on the Wizards and Tempest Cleric can be absolutely amazing here when you have the enemies in a chokepoint by shoving them backwards and into pit traps. The approach that your are giving, stagger the pits and open areas so that when they are shoved backwards that fall into the trap. Also, it can easily be used to shove over an entire row of siege ladders (maybe even siege engines as well).

[Zirconia]

Other ideas in conjunction with my "add earthen walls to your inn", build a wooden framework for the earthen walls on the roof, and on top put logs. Push a 2' diameter, 10' long log off the top as people are scaling the walls, and its about 2000 lbs dropping on them. Wooden caltrops may also be a fast way to make difficult terrain in as large a radius around the Inn as possible, so they have to charge over that to close while you shoot them through arrow slits

I'm still thinking about how to deal with the inevitable night attack, and build 12 bonfires with large, green logs about 60' out from the inn. You want them to burn a long time without tending. You can use the disassembled stable for some of that. Light 6 as nightfall arrives, the other 6 have oily rags to get them going, you use fire arrows to light those half way through the night as the first 6 die. If each gives 30' of bright light and 30' of dim light, you have a 120' perimeter lit up, which is longbow range, and the range someone with improved darkvision could otherwise snipe at you unseen. Have no lights going where you are on the inn roof, and they'll have disadvantage + cover penalty shooting at you there, while you can see them in the bonfire light as they approach.

Speaking of which, have the Aarakokra fly around over the bad guys, about 130' up. As your Light cantrip arrows or other light sources land among the enemy so he can see them, he can swoop down to 110', fire his bow (presumably good at that as a ranger), and swoop back up to 130'. He is now out of range of any darkvision, they have to guess at what square he ends up in to even fire at him with disadvantage. Prioritize targets with 120' darkvision, they are the biggest threat for night attacks.

Also during the day, have him scout for the approaching enemy to estimate numbers and composition, stay above 600' to be out of even max longbow range, 20 foes shooting at him even with disadvantage could do some damage.

[Chalkarts]

Research Vietnam Booby Traps

Many low tech, high effect traps. With Mold earth and enough pointy sticks you should be able to pepper the area with Punji traps and Bear traps.

Never underestimate the usefulness of a well placed grease spell.

elevated arrow positions.

Shallow oil trench covered and ready to ignite.

Kegs make good Barricade blocks.

[carrdrivesyou]

Please let us know how the battle turns out!

The battle was a pyrrhic victory for both sides. About a half dozen of the enemy got away, but they decimated our ranks as well. We lost all but two of our higher CR NPCs, but we kept all but one of the CR 1/8 guards alive. We also lost our ranger. So no more Bird Boi taking messages long distance to HQ. That hurts...a lot. We DID manage to prevent the tavern from being set on fire, although they will need some new carpets, not that the owner survived the first occupation anyways. The only PC to pull through the fight without being knocked out was the Loxodon Wizard. and even then he only had HP in the teens.

The strategy went more or less to plan, but instead of on the roof, the ranger hid in a tree outside (as birds are wont to do), and he tanked an ice storm and a lighting bolt from the mage who was flying above our heads. Some arrows and eldritch blasts took her out of the sky in a couple rounds though. our ambush team in the barn did REALLY well, eliminating the entire southern attack force TWICE. which is really good because they had 4 guards and a spy to that entire team; they really came through there. We prioritized the duergar and dragonborn for their breath weapons and enlarge abilities; we did NOT want to be in range with those.

The bane of our existences were actually 4 people. The other captain, a Leonin, we never figured his stat block, dropped my fighter in one turn. Like, I got one hit on him and he ended me. Mind you, I am fighter 2/warlock 2, with 34 hp and 8 thp. dropped me cold in one turn. Everyone else got pin cushioned by drow archers who stayed on the perimeter and sniped people with held actions. i kept using my healing light to pick up the ranger, but as soon as he tried to move out of cover, he got sniped back down. the cleric tried to get to him, but also got sniped down. they were using the Archer stat block (CR3), enhanced with drow racial traits. So 225hp of 120ft darkvision and 150ft of range moving around in the dark and the storm, sniping us with nigh impunity. literally nothing we could do there. my warlock was the only one who could see them, and they utterly annihilated the team.

Our NPCs were mostly able to drag us inside and stabilize us, but there was nothing we could do for the ranger. we use the GR rules, and a house rule that gives you a point of exhaustion whenever you hit zero. So by the time he actually died, he had 3 levels of exhaustion and was making saves at disadvantage.

So long story short, we lost our ranger and a good amount of our friends, but our underlings mostly pulled through. The enemies lost both captains and their lieutenant, but the archers got away without a scratch along with some survivors from the melee. So the archers will be back later, likely with magical weapons for having killed our ranger. Seriously, these jackwagons get promotions for this sort of crap. They are perfect Lawful Evil in that the guy who burned a child alive got a promotion and full plate armor (we killed him already though). So we are NOT looking forward to fighting those guys again. Not until we get 5th level at least.

Oh yea, and we didn't even level up from this fight. So meh.

[Unoriginal]

EDIT: nevermind, you meant there was enough Archers to make it 225 HPs total.

Still not sure what your characters' goals or the enemies' goals were, either.

Regardless it sounds like an awesome fight and I'd probably have loved to be there.

As for the Leonin, well, the Leonin Iconoclast can definitively deal 42 damages in one turn if they hit three times (or are lucky with the damage dice). They're CR 5 though.

[carrdrivesyou]

EDIT: nevermind, you meant there was enough Archers to make it 225 HPs total.

Still not sure what your characters' goals or the enemies' goals were, either.

Regardless it sounds like an awesome fight and I'd probably have loved to be there.

As for the Leonin, well, the Leonin Iconoclast can definitively deal 42 damages in one turn if they hit three times (or are lucky with the damage dice). They're CR 5 though.

The goal was to take and hold the crossroads, because they had blockaded it, not allowing trade to go north to a developing settlement. Considering its a frontier type situation, it was basically a death sentence to anyone who can't get resources. So the goal was to make sure the roads stayed open. Just another way to push their totalitarian regime onto people.

That sounds right for stat block. I will have to look it up later. Either way, the fight was obnoxious is every capacity. Mind you, my dragonborn was the ONLY teammate who had full resources. We even did a recreation of it on the encounter builder. Even WITH our help, it was still a 10x deadly encounter. One well placed fireball from the mage would have eliminated just about everyone but the ranger. Thankfully we were smart enough to realize she was a powerful magic use and so we blocked line of sight by keeping the door closed.


The fight was a slog. I like a good fight, but this took 5 hours, and lasted about 9 rounds. Mechanically, this was a nightmare. Narratively, this was a good fight. Probably the first of a war.

[Dork_Forge]

Glad that your PCs succeeded!



The fight was a slog. I like a good fight, but this took 5 hours, and lasted about 9 rounds.

Yikes taht is a long time for 9 rounds... Why do you think it ran for so long?

[carrdrivesyou]

Glad that your PCs succeeded!



Yikes taht is a long time for 9 rounds... Why do you think it ran for so long?

"Succeeded" is a strong word here. We stopped the session after the fighting was over, but the DM is saying that things WILL happen in the night, while only the wizard is on his feet. Based on how he has been talking, he is going to do one of three things:
1. Have the surviving enemies come steal our loot and probably the ranger's body and gear.
2. Try to raise the dead captains.
3. Kick in the door and try to make everyone surrender, probably putting more arrows into the unconscious people to try and make sure they die.

There is a SMALL chance that a friendly arrives to help, but I would estimate that at less than a percent chance of happening.

If we lose any more gear or people, probably just gonna quit this one.

EDIT: It lasted so long because the DM was doing sneaky stuff with enemies we could not see, but could see us. We were controlling most of our friendly units, but only myself and the artificer planned our moves ahead of time. We could have played another game on the side during this session. I think I fell asleep twice.

[Dork_Forge]

"Succeeded" is a strong word here. We stopped the session after the fighting was over, but the DM is saying that things WILL happen in the night, while only the wizard is on his feet. Based on how he has been talking, he is going to do one of three things:
1. Have the surviving enemies come steal our loot and probably the ranger's body and gear.
2. Try to raise the dead captains.
3. Kick in the door and try to make everyone surrender, probably putting more arrows into the unconscious people to try and make sure they die.

There is a SMALL chance that a friendly arrives to help, but I would estimate that at less than a percent chance of happening.

If we lose any more gear or people, probably just gonna quit this one.

EDIT: It lasted so long because the DM was doing sneaky stuff with enemies we could not see, but could see us. We were controlling most of our friendly units, but only myself and the artificer planned our moves ahead of time. We could have played another game on the side during this session. I think I fell asleep twice.

Yikes, I assumed that once the combat was over that all downed parties would be revived. It sounds like a mixture of the DM mismanaging their end of things and the party doing the classic thing of not planning or paying attention until it's their turn.

Was this physical dice as well? That would be painful to sit through.

[carrdrivesyou]

Yikes, I assumed that once the combat was over that all downed parties would be revived. It sounds like a mixture of the DM mismanaging their end of things and the party doing the classic thing of not planning or paying attention until it's their turn.

Was this physical dice as well? That would be painful to sit through.

It was on Roll20, so dice rolls were mostly pretty quick.