Ideas for a naval raid?

[msully4321]

I'm DMing a campaign that is currently in the midst of a war over a succession crisis.

My party is 8th level and consists of a Warblade, a Wizard, a Sorcerer, a Favored Soul, and Artificer, and a Rogue 6/Swordsage 2 (who will be going back into Rogue).

The party has convinced the candidate for the throne they are supporting to let them lead a raid on one of their enemy's port cities. It is a small-medium sized port, expected to rapidly grow in importance in the near future.

The raiding party consists of about 100 men, of which the party are by far the most powerful. They are traveling on a handful of fast ships (probably 3 longships or the like?).

They will be attacking into a harbor at night, trying to sink ships and wreak havok before ideally slipping out again. I figure the harbor will have 2 or 3 warships and a number of merchant vessels. The ships the players are in are not really outfitted as warships; they belong to smugglers/blockade runners.

Any suggestions on how to make this interesting?

[Lycan 01]

Boarding actions?

Um... There's a mutiny due to some of the sailors being spies, and the PCs have to protect the captain or whoever is in charge of the raid while trying to retake the helm?

Sea Monsters and/or severe weather?

They have to hop in a rowboat, make it to shore, and take out some signaling stations in order to prevent the enemy from coordinating its resistance? Bonus points if the scuttle a few ships that are still docked...

[xPANCAKEx]

provide them with a number of tactical strike options (loot the towns vault, burn the local food store, kill someone)

have the raid cover three time scales: suprise, panic and defence.

certain actions will move it along (or even completely bypass) certain time segments. For example:
*slipping in on a lone boat and silently sneaking in to murder a local military officier could still be done quietly as long as they do it on the q-t, giving them the option of moving off to other things. Of course using flashy magic like fireballs will let the whole town know they're there and bump it along the defence phase and then the raiders really will be on the back foot
*setting fires across the town will spread panic and slow any defences letting them do other things, but once its noticed they're there, they will not only face the local militia, but ticked off local townspeople too. A defence force of 100-200 militia would swiftly get backed up by a mob of 400-500
*poisoning the local water well - do it on the sly, in and out, no one would be any the wiser until a week later when the towns people die in their droves, making the port rife for a military strike at the start of an invasion
*looting the vault/temple/whatevs would drain local resources but swiftly raise a very well drilled response

giving them options (although not letting them know the consiquences from the get go - they'd have to carefully plan it out) and letting them make their choices would be part of the fun

tell me more about the town and im sure i could whip up a whole batch of options for you

the key is not to let them get away with doing EVERYTHING. 100 men, tired from rowing, even when lead by a level 8 party, are not likely to sweep an entire town, unless its VERY poorly defended

[LibraryOgre]

Depends on how interesting you want it to be.

a) While they're making an attack, some patriotic folks come in and fight back. These folks might be fishermen or they might be another set of smugglers. It might even be a warship that was out on maneuvers.

b) One of the ships in the harbor contains something dangerous. This might be a monster destined for a menagerie or simply tuns and tuns of flammable oil (which burns the ship quickly and maybe spreads on the water).

c) The dockside contains a shrine to one of the PCs deities. Fire on the docks is likely to burn the place down. You can substitute orphanages or convalescent homes for destitute hookers... whatever would motivate the PCs to be careful and creative.

d) Similar to b, something on the dockside is uniquely dangerous. A brewery (even just a small still can cause big problems)? A granary? Some wizard's iron golem? Remember, they don't have to fight the iron golem... they just have to avoid it, or even use it to their advantage.

Just a few options.