Staying neutral during a siege

[Sapphire Guard]

Basic situation: There are two armies, one besieged in a castle in the middle of a town. As they're busy maintaining a siege/being besieged, they are not spending much time maintaining order and monsters are moving into the town, hence adventuring parties have to fill the gap... but they need the approval of both armies to operate.

The problem is that I can't think of a good reason for the besieged army to agree to allow this, because if third parties do things like clear monsters from a farm, that makes the besieging army's supply lines easier. Neither of them actually want the entire city to be destroyed, but neither is going to willingly hand the other army an obvious advantage. Any thoughts, folks? Thanks very much.

[Draconi Redfir]

serious answer: no matter who is the winning side, monsters destroying the town just means no town to move into when it's all over. the besieged can't return home, and the seigers can't move in.


joke answer: give the corpses of the monsters to the attackers to catapult them into the castle. the defenders can then use the monster corpses for food, weapons, armor, and other materials.

[InvisibleBison]

Why does the besieged army's opinion matter? They're trapped in the castle, after all. What can they do to stop people from going monster-hunting without their permission?

[Segev]

Basic situation: There are two armies, one besieged in a castle in the middle of a town. As they're busy maintaining a siege/being besieged, they are not spending much time maintaining order and monsters are moving into the town, hence adventuring parties have to fill the gap... but they need the approval of both armies to operate.

The problem is that I can't think of a good reason for the besieged army to agree to allow this, because if third parties do things like clear monsters from a farm, that makes the besieging army's supply lines easier. Neither of them actually want the entire city to be destroyed, but neither is going to willingly hand the other army an obvious advantage. Any thoughts, folks? Thanks very much.

It's more likely that adventuring parties would be hired by one side or the other. The sieging force can't afford monsters preying on their camp followers and their soldiers, and while they COULD send a squad of troops to deal with it, adventurers are just better at this sort of thing (and aren't helping with the siege anyway). The besieged town has all its soldiers on the wall, so when monstrous rats invade from the sewers or a ghast hurled over the wall by catapult from the enemies outside starts making ghouls inside the walls, it falls to adventurers to solve the problem.

Adventurers inside the besieged city aren't going to be treated as "neutral" by the sieging forces; laying siege means you want to starve out the target as fast as possible, so you do not let people come and go. At all. At best, you allow the adventurers OUT, and then tell them they can't go back in. If the adventurers could force the issue with their personal power, they basically have broken the siege.

Regardless of whether they want it destroyed, a besieged city isn't going to be allowed relief from any circumstance by the sieging force. That defeats the purpose of the siege. At best, a neutral party might be allowed to camp outside the siege ring, and come in to broker meetings between the leaders of the two sides. They'd not be permitted to bring any supplies in with them, and they certainly wouldn't be permitted to help the sieged city with anything. And if they're helping relieve the stresses on the sieging force, the besieged won't see them as neutral, either.

[Keltest]

I have a somewhat different question to ask: What is the besieging army doing that monsters are able to just get into this town and live in it? Isnt that kind of the whole point of a siege?

[kyoryu]

You could go for "the monsters are damaging the town and your stuff more than the army is" but that seems weak.

It might be that there are still people - friends, families, etc - in the town and the monsters are attacking them, whlie the army is inexplicably leaving them alone and these people aren't mounting any kind of resistance.

I'm not sure there's really a good option here.

[Willie the Duck]

Why does the besieged army's opinion matter? They're trapped in the castle, after all. What can they do to stop people from going monster-hunting without their permission?

Besieged armies might not completely 'trapped in the castle' during sieges. Instead, they could be in a situation where the castle mostly allows them to choose the terms on any engagement. They can armor up and ride out to attack their besiegers while they are ready to fight and the besiegers are unprepared (or fatigued and less productive by having to be prepared at all times), and then ride back in to rest and recover in the relative safety of their castle. Beyond that, this is a RPG castle, so quite possibly there are people inside who can project power even with an unbroken siege. Beyond that, there are after-the-fact consequences if the siege fails and the people in the castle eventually come back out and are in control.

[Sapphire Guard]

Sorry folks, I explained that badly.

The city's outer walls were already mostly destroyed in an unrelated battle years earlier, the besiegers are besieging the keep in the centre of the city, the siege ring is mostly within the town, which is big, but heavily depopulated from the previous war. There are still some locals living there, mostly just trying to stay out of the way, but there are a lot of empty ruins as well.

The warring parties don't have enough soldiers to spare to hunt monsters ( which are mostly leftover bioweapons from the earlier war) that are moving into empty places and preying on anything vulnerable.

The commanders of either army aren't going to do something stupid like allow adventurers to wander into the castle with supplies, or help supply the besiegers by clearing roads and so on. They're neutral in the sense of 'we're too busy to deal with you', but if said adventurers step out of line, they will be dealt with. Aiding the enemy too much qualifies as stepping out of line.

The besieged party can still cause problems for adventuring parties because they still have some bioweapons of their own, not enough to break the siege, but enough to make small third parties regret meddling.

Monster attacks are not a direct threat to the army behind their walls. They're inconvenient to the besieging army, attacking patrols and the like, but they're a lot more dangerous to the locals.

In principle, the besieged forces don't object to third parties hunting the monsters, but obviously if they do things like clear farmland that eases the supply situation for the besieging army.

My problem is trying to find a way to let third parties do hunting without either army deciding 'you are helping my enemy, screw that'.

[kyoryu]

Another option:

The town surrounding the castle isn't fully occupied, and for some dumbass reason isn't mounting an insurgency (all the fighting people are in the castle or already dead?). As such, the besiegers aren't harassing them so long as they stay in their lane.

But, with the besiegers not taking time to police/monitor, that means monsters are in.

So the adventurers are basically old townspeople. The besieged are happy, because that's their family and stuff. The besiegers are happy because so long as they stay in their lane, it's one less problem for them to deal with.

[Berenger]

Whats the nature of the war? Is it some chivalrous feud with strict rules of engagement and provisions for the humane treatment of prisoners, civilians, etc.? Is it a brutal total war of attrition? What's the main goal, conquest, extermination, forced conversion, something else?

On what terms are the commanders? Do they hate each others guts? Are they cousins, mildly embarrassed by the fact they ended up on opposite sides and just doing as duty demands? Whats the relationsship between the invaders and the defenders? Do they share a common cultural background and values? Do they see each other as heathen / barbaric / halfling-loving vermin?

[LordCdrMilitant]

I would say the party should be hired by one side or the other, probably the army laying siege since the army that is besieged seems to be in absolutely no state to be hiring people or wanting to hire people to clear out the monsters right now.

That solves the problem of "staying neutral", by not.

The army setting the siege has lots of reason to want the monsters dealt with, and it's logical to hire mercenaries for the purpose of securing the supply lines.

[King of Nowhere]

Another option:

The town surrounding the castle isn't fully occupied, and for some dumbass reason isn't mounting an insurgency (all the fighting people are in the castle or already dead?).

why would it be a dumbass reason? today we are used to the idea of national identity and if an enemy invades your country, you resist. today we are used to having governments that rule (mostly) with our consensus and in our favor. an invading enemy obviously would not, so we'd resist.

in ancient times? who cares for an invading army. you'd be just swapping a lord ruling with an iron fist for another. hey, maybe those new guys will give us better taxation? you'd be surprised at how many times a city dissatisfied with their current kingdom spontaneously joined with the invaders.
as for the farmers, which make up most of the population, the fields still need plowing, and the lords will still collect taxes. it doesn't really matter whose banner is hanging from the tower. why risk your life when it would change absolutely nothing as far as your living conditions are concerned?

so, there's plenty of good reasons to not mount a resistance.


that said, it could easily be argued that both armies want to control the land, and adventurers keeping the land from being ravaged too bad are doing a favor to both sides.

[MoiMagnus]

Through history, there was often a lot of conventions during wars. Example being treating well prisoner of wars, not killing civilians after capturing a city, allowing medics to come rescue injured soldiers after a battle (or the corpses of important nobles), keeping alive strategists and noble-born, ...

The important point of those conventions is that they were often not respected. War being often "we must win at any cost". But your enemies will likely be your future master, your future subject, a future ally against a third party, or simply a future trading partner. So paving the way to peaceful times can be a good idea.

In a world where monsters are a plague to the civilisation, it's not unreasonable to assume a convention against monsters exist. And that third-party might be allowed to take care of the monsters and move freely even during a siege, under conditions (like complying to be checked against smuggling supplies, written promise of non-interference, some long-distance visible sign of them being neutral like a flag, ...).
Sure, some generals will break it, and actively use monsters in the same way than real life general poisoned water sources. But not all will.

[Pauly]

In a siege no one is neutral.
- Anything you do will help one side or the other.
- Doing nothing will help one side or the other.
- Armed combatants Wandering around in the vicinity will be a threat to one side or the other.
- Stirring up monsters in the area will help one side or the other.
- both sides will want the adventurers to help end the siege and failure to help to that end will be seen as suspicious.
- both sides will see the party’s assets (items) as a resource that can be used to help end the siege.
- both sides will see the resolution of the siege as several orders of magnitude more important than dealing with the monsters.
- at the resolution of the siege any neutral parties in the area who failed to help the victorious party will be viewed with hostility.

[Yora]

I say ignore the defenders trapped in the castle. They probably won't be noticing anything the players are doing, and even if they do and somehow are able to strike at them, they have much more pressing matters with trying to fight of the defenders. Why throw magic against the players when you can use it against the attackers?

[Segev]

Indeed, unless the siege is nearly meaningless, the defenders are cut off from the world. So for those who are not deliberately on their side, they are a no factor in enforcement of anything outside the siege wall.

[Aneurin]

Indeed, unless the siege is nearly meaningless, the defenders are cut off from the world. So for those who are not deliberately on their side, they are a no factor in enforcement of anything outside the siege wall.

Not being able to move your army out without immediately being spotted and stopped is one thing, but it's more than likely that (particularly at night) the defenders would be able to send out spoiling and raiding parties to mess up any siege works the attackers are trying to build, and generally stop them doing anything suspicious-looking. It's just good sense not to let an enemy dig tunnels under your walls, or raise a ramp that will let them run up over your walls.


I do wonder why both sides need to be neutral to the party for this to work, though. I'd have thought that having one side that will try and interfere given the chance could be quite an interesting complication when they're close to the keep.

[Bohandas]

Is the party cleric dedicated to a deity respected by both sides? That might help.

[Jay R]

There is no place to go where the PCs need both army's permissions to reach, or the siege is no longer a siege. The essence of a siege is to prevent movement into or out of the beseiged areas.

The besieging army doesn't allow anyone to get into the castle, because they need to stop all supply lines.

So don't focus on the town surrounding the castle. Focus on nearby villages and farms that are normally protected by the castle's forces. That protection is gone, so raiders are seizing the opportunity to attack the small, unprotected areas.

The inside army won't stop you because they can't get there. The outside army won't stop you because they're too busy.

The outside army might watch you to see if you will become a threat, but you'd be protecting the people that they hope to either rule or plunder. Either way, they don't want those people raided.

[jayem]

So don't focus on the town surrounding the castle. Focus on nearby villages and farms that are normally protected by the castle's forces. That protection is gone, so raiders are seizing the opportunity to attack the small, unprotected areas.

The inside army won't stop you because they can't get there. The outside army won't stop you because they're too busy.

The outside army might watch you to see if you will become a threat, but you'd be protecting the people that they hope to either rule or plunder. Either way, they don't want those people raided.

This seems the ideal solution, the castle wants to help but can't (much?), Depending on resources they might even be able to drop supplies (although presumably at least some supplies are running low) or provide info.
The besieger's could a bit, but not if it costs them much. They aren't against rescuing, might even lend a bit of a hand, but aren't willing to risk it themselves.

There is no place to go where the PCs need both army's permissions to reach, or the siege is no longer a siege. The essence of a siege is to prevent movement into or out of the beseiged areas.

Well then, technically the castle itself qualifies. [/being silly]
More seriously there would be a bit of area between,the two, potentially more than an arrows flight.
At Corfe castle it's 400m between the castle and the attackers 'castle' (if I've identified it properly, wiki says 300m), which doesn't sound a lot but looks it on the map.

However that's an area neither side really trust you in, you could possibly get something going there. It's big enough even to have a small village (again looking at Corfe) that's under enough pressure to stop it doing mischief but at the same time perfectly fine left alone, and leave them vulnerable if they occupy it properly. A kind of half seige.
If that were attacked by monsters (especially if they also picked up the odd beseiger), neither attacker nor defender could afford to be distracted to engage properly but could both be happy to let someone else help. Although it's a recipe for confusion, you'd have to work to keep things stable, and even if you did manage to get it to be factually possible it wouldn't be convincing.
The outer villages offer much more flexibility.

[ngilop]

I say ignore the defenders trapped in the castle. They probably won't be noticing anything the players are doing, and even if they do and somehow are able to strike at them, they have much more pressing matters with trying to fight of the defenders. Why throw magic against the players when you can use it against the attackers?

This pretty much. They have a MUCH bigger threat literally in their faces than a handful of people doing stuff.

Furthermore.. between an actual siege going on and MONSTERS seeming just coming into the town to chill, why are people even still living there? The players should just start killing whoever, as they are just too stupid to be allowed to live.

[King of Nowhere]

consider also that adventurers are one-person armies, capable of inflicting heavy casualties on regular mooks even at mid-low levels. likely to have some trick to escape and come back to make troubles later.
I'd think a general would not want to antagonize them needlessly. unless they really start to oppose you directly.
so, as long as those guys do random stuff that's unrelated to your and may just so happen to indirectly help your foe, you'll want to leave them alone, or negotiate some kind of non-interference deal. opposing them is not worth the cost

[Jay R]

The PCs will probably have to convince the besieging army -- maybe more than once -- that they aren't quietly getting food and supplies inside the castle by digging tunnels or teleporting in. A frustrated siege commander could easily believe that fighting the nearby raiders is a cover story (or even necessary to protect the supplies they are bringing to the castle).

A credible fighting force (the PCs) staying near the siege will certainly generate concern.

[icefractal]

If the monsters becoming entrenched is a possibility (say if left alone, they might dig tunnels between basements, find good hiding places, and become lurking predators that basically make the town uninhabitable) then both sides may consider the benefit of their removal to outweigh any risk of the adventurers helping the other side.

Also, if the besieged side believes (correctly or not) that assistance will be coming in future, they might not care as much about the besiegers having supply lines.

Alternately, the adventurers could be part of an organization with a strong reputation for neutrality, and who neither side wants to make an enemy of.

[LordCdrMilitant]

consider also that adventurers are one-person armies, capable of inflicting heavy casualties on regular mooks even at mid-low levels. likely to have some trick to escape and come back to make troubles later.
I'd think a general would not want to antagonize them needlessly. unless they really start to oppose you directly.
so, as long as those guys do random stuff that's unrelated to your and may just so happen to indirectly help your foe, you'll want to leave them alone, or negotiate some kind of non-interference deal. opposing them is not worth the cost

This really depends on the GM.

I almost always choose to represent an army and it's troops as collectively vastly more powerful than a PC [and, of course, for reference, in Pathfinder, an average-sized party would have to be at least level 8 to even like register on the scale as a company of men.]

Even if you stay out of mass combat, opposing them is very worth the cost. They party can't kill your army, at most they could kill like a dozen guys before they turn into pincushions if you resolve it in encounter-time [they might not even live that long, to be fair. A company of archers deployed simultaneously will decimate a 5e low-mid level party, before even considering that the army has its own wizards and clerics as well as other units beyond a company of archers that it brought with it and what they might contribute].

Spoiler: As a thought exercise

Show

A army of 100 Human Archers fought as a single encounter with no class features or feats, just proficiency:
STR 12, DEX 14, CON 13, INT 11, WIS 10, CHA 9
Longbow: To hit: +4, 1d8+2 [7] Piercing

Vs.

a level 8 party with a "classic" loadout of 1 cleric [AC16, HP60], 1 wizard [AC13, HP45], 1 rogue [AC16, HP60], 1 fighter [AC16/18, HP75]

If the archers split evenly, then about 10 hits are registered on each PC, resulting in 20+10d8 [70] damage to them dropping all outright except the fighter, who will certainly die in the next salvo.
If the archers split their fire a little more tactically and count on averages, moving shots from the squishy wizard to the fighter, they can drop everybody in a single round.
If the archers play it safe, they can just outright execute the cleric and the wizard, preventing any chance of blast effects reducing their number beyond the 3 that can be killed by the fighter and rogue or healing un-doing any of their work, and then execute the remaining two on their turn.

Even if the PC's go first, and open with fireballs or other large blast effects, they don't deplete the NPC archers anywhere near fast enough to avoid just being shot down in about 3 turns with maybe a dozen or two dozen people killed.

This isn't an unexpected result, since even with these like CR1/8 or 1/4 guys the encounter CR is like 17-25, which is way too high for a level 8 party even considering that CR is questionably accurate on the best of days.

The only real survival course of action for the party is to run. There aren't really that many tricks they can pull, but they can at least D-Door into the long range bracket, hope that the disadvantage causes enough misses that they don't get shot down, and then run from there.

It takes being like level 15 or so before the players start looking like an acceptable substitute for even a small army in an single encounter.



Your GM is free to rule that even the level 1 players are like superheroic gods-among-men who are arbitrarily better than all the lesser creatures for no discernible reason other than being played by a player, but I think that there are also pretty compelling "fluff" reasons [besides the rules just making being that superheroic nearly impossible] to abide by the assumption that the party are a veteran squad that can perform delicate tasks efficiently and are more elite than your average infantry squad [or at late-mid levels, platoon], but aren't a substitute for a whole army.

At the very minimum, if a restless retired soldier with a greatsword, a hobo with a pointy stick and stolen crossbow, an interant evangelical firebrand preacher, a college lass/lad unable to get hired after graduation, and a young noble born with magic power having a "you don't understand my powers MOM" moment, or any other half-common character archetype can see off companies of soldiers, what's to stop literally anyone from from just deciding they don't want to pay taxes today? Anyone with a couple of years of being a murderhobo under their belt would be able to found kingdoms or overthrow them singlehandedly, and the world would be total chaos.

[icefractal]

This really depends on the GM.

I almost always choose to represent an army and it's troops as collectively vastly more powerful than a PC [and, of course, for reference, in Pathfinder, an average-sized party would have to be at least level 8 to even like register on the scale as a company of men.]

I think that depends on the party, and on how the fight goes down.

In 5E, the power curve is indeed flatter, and armies can not only kill adventurers but also dragons, lich kings, and such. There are some exceptions - a Werewolf (or someone who used Magic Jar to possess one) is just straight-up immune to ordinary weapons. A well-prepared army probably has silver arrows though.

But you mentioned Pathfinder, and in that the power curve is much more of a curve. For example, a mid level character could easily have AC 27 and potentially DR as well. I don't think most parties would fare well in an open-field combat, but by using guerrilla tactics, even a L5 party could be quite a pain in the ass, and a L10 one could (eventually) force an army into rout (I'm assuming a low-level but professional army with decent tactics; a bunch of conscripts with no anti-caster measures would be a lot easier).


I mean, this is basically the reason the army would even want adventurers to deal with the monsters instead of doing it themselves. A Troll that charged the army in an open field would be quickly filled with arrows and then burned. But a Troll inside a building, where only a few men can engage it at once, and the army doesn't want to raze the building ... that's going to have a lot of casualties; better to send in a few heavily skilled people who may have a chance alone. Now consider if those few people decided to be the Troll ... of course they're going to be a hazard as well.

[King of Nowhere]

This really depends on the GM.

I almost always choose to represent an army and it's troops as collectively vastly more powerful than a PC [and, of course, for reference, in Pathfinder, an average-sized party would have to be at least level 8 to even like register on the scale as a company of men.]

Even if you stay out of mass combat, opposing them is very worth the cost. They party can't kill your army, at most they could kill like a dozen guys before they turn into pincushions if you resolve it in encounter-time [they might not even live that long, to be fair. A company of archers deployed simultaneously will decimate a 5e low-mid level party, before even considering that the army has its own wizards and clerics as well as other units beyond a company of archers that it brought with it and what they might contribute].

It takes being like level 13-15 or so before the players start looking like an acceptable substitute for an army in an single encounter.



Your GM is free to rule that even the level 1 players are like superheroic gods-among-men who are arbitrarily better than all the lesser creatures for no discernible reason other than being played by a player, but I think that there are also pretty compelling "fluff" reasons to abide by the assumption that the party are a veteran squad that can perform delicate tasks efficiently and are more elite than your average infantry squad [or at late-mid levels, platoon], but aren't a substitute for a whole army.

At the very minimum, if a restless retired soldier with a greatsword, a hobo with a pointy stick and stolen crossbow, an interant evangelical firebrand preacher, a college lass/lad unable to get hired after graduation, and a young noble born with magic power having a "you don't understand my powers MOM" moment, or any other half-common character archetype can see off companies of soldiers, what's to stop literally anyone from from just deciding they don't want to pay taxes today? Anyone with a couple of years of being a murderhobo under their belt would be able to found kingdoms or overthrow them singlehandedly, and the world would be total chaos.

not necessary to go to this level, and in my world adventurers also are less powerful than armies (if nothing else because armies have their own high level people).
but still, they are a small unit highly mobile, so they are likely to be able to hit first and choose the terms of engagement. if they are so dumb to charge the whole army, they deserve to die.
it's difficult to pin adventurers, if they are losing they can teleport away, or use invisibility, or summon some fog.... and they can ambush small units and wipe them out in seconds.
so, maybe they will just cost you a few dozen soldiers. maybe they will keep busy your divinators for a few days finding them. I call those costs not inconsequential.
sure, you can still negotiate with those adventurers from a position of power. but you can't just push them however you want. and if you antagonize them for no reasons, you'll regret it eventually. if for no other reason that you are less likely to get support from other adventurers in the future. and all for what? because they are minding their business in the same general area as you are and it may turn out that their actions will possibly help your enemy more than you, and that may possibly offset the benefit that their action will surely provide to your cause [i.e. land you rule is in better condition] if you win?

that's why i say opposing them is not worth the cost. not because you will be defeated, but because the gain from opposing them is so small and uncertain. you only act if you have some real reason to think they are helping your enemy.

for the same reason, if you find a neutral traveling merchant, you trade with him. you don't drive him away because there is some small chance that if he sells useful items to the civilian population they may improve enough their living condition that they may start thinking about an insurrection, instead of just the next meal. a merchant has even less chance of defeating your army than a band of adventurers. but it will gain nothing, and other merchants will steer clear of the area, causing you all kind of problems.
in the end the aesop is that you must not be an ass to traveling service providers, for you need them more than they need you

[LordCdrMilitant]

not necessary to go to this level, and in my world adventurers also are less powerful than armies (if nothing else because armies have their own high level people).
but still, they are a small unit highly mobile, so they are likely to be able to hit first and choose the terms of engagement. if they are so dumb to charge the whole army, they deserve to die.
it's difficult to pin adventurers, if they are losing they can teleport away, or use invisibility, or summon some fog.... and they can ambush small units and wipe them out in seconds.
so, maybe they will just cost you a few dozen soldiers. maybe they will keep busy your divinators for a few days finding them. I call those costs not inconsequential.
sure, you can still negotiate with those adventurers from a position of power. but you can't just push them however you want. and if you antagonize them for no reasons, you'll regret it eventually. if for no other reason that you are less likely to get support from other adventurers in the future. and all for what? because they are minding their business in the same general area as you are and it may turn out that their actions will possibly help your enemy more than you, and that may possibly offset the benefit that their action will surely provide to your cause [i.e. land you rule is in better condition] if you win?

that's why i say opposing them is not worth the cost. not because you will be defeated, but because the gain from opposing them is so small and uncertain. you only act if you have some real reason to think they are helping your enemy.

A few dozen casualties is largely insignificant if the alternative is your siege not being much of a siege.
I don't think fighting the adventurers it the army's first response, I'm just contesting the idea that they couldn't if they wanted to or the idea that the adventurers are worth an army in their own right.



In this exact scenario though, I see no reason for the party to be neutral. The besieging army likes their contribution of securing the rear, and would probably be willing to pay them to do it much like how it's not uncommon to hire PMC's today to secure convoys. The army that's besieged isn't in a position to do anything about it. At best, they might give a counter offer of "we'll pay you to make yourself a nuisance and kill supply caravans" or even "we'll pay you to go away".

Basically, the party really only needs permission from the army setting siege [though as long as they're just killing monsters, if they don't ask, then the army setting siege is probably not going to complain too much since hey, it's free mercenaries], and the defending army actually just has little reason to let them go about it. So they're not neutral.

[Sapphire Guard]

Okay, I'm convinced, this doesn't really work. As always, though, GITP has some great thoughts, so thanks everyone.

[Bohandas]

It could work if it was a highly ritualized conflict rather than an all-out war