Planning a city siege

[E_Samurai]

Hey guys!

I'm looking for a bit of help planning out a city siege that will occur within the next few sessions of my game. The players are trying to prevent an evil king from conquering the city to bolster his own (already impressive) army. What I need is suggestions for attacks and defenses on both sides, and ways to keep the party actively involved in the situation.

The city, Skyrim, is built along the edge of a 500' cliff, looking down over the ocean. A series of rivers flow from the nearby mountains, through Skyrim, and off the cliffs, providing drinking water for the citizens. It is tightly organized and militarized, and the defenses are quite strong - a series of strong walls with lightning cannon towers surround the entire city, and the defending soldiers are well-trained and well-equipped. Skyrim has a flight of 10 airships that provide aerial support, and a magical barrier has been erected around the city to prevent the airships from bombing the city from above and enemy spellcasting.

(A note: there is no such thing as gunpowder in this world; instead, cannons are powered by thunderstone, and fire bolts of lightning. These are very commonly found on airships and in ground defenses.)

Unfortunately, the attacking army is vast - easily outnumbering the defenders 3 to 1, and well-trained as well. They have their own flight of 30 airships who are pounding away at the shield and providing support for the ground troops, as well as an aerial force of griffon and roc riders, and magical support. As well, the army has already infiltrated the city with a clan of highly skilled assassins. The White King, the leader of the army, is a powerful (20th level) cleric who has gained the ability to mentally dominate a willing populace via a powerful artifact - his goal is to beat the city into submission and take control of the remainders.

The group is made up of 7 11th level characters, with no cleric or druid. They have their own airship, somewhat beaten up and lacking weapons, and the help of an ancient phoenix dedicated to eradicating corruption - although it's very difficult to get the phoenix to agree on a course of action - it thinks it is in charge. Unknown to them, there is a spy on the airship, who is reporting their plans to the White King.

The attackers' primary goal is to assassinate the city's leader and general, bringing its military coordination to a halt, prevent the phoenix from destroying their airship fleet, and demoralize the population of the city enough so that the White King can dominate the rest. He's not interested in the citizens, just the soldiers - he's fully willing to kill the entire city's nonmilitary population if need be.

A few ideas so far -

- Poison the rivers leading into the city?
- Magically protect the airships with Fire Shield / Protection from Energy (fire), to prevent the phoenix from destroying them?
- Tunnel under the city using trained bulettes or delvers?

Thanks for your help!

[streakster]

Siege golems, from Cityscape, for the attackers.

[Crow]

Use the rivers to infiltrate the city.

Otherwise, divert the rivers.

[Dervag]

Suggestions:
Does the White King have a loyal "fifth column" within the city walls? If so, you've got an instant source of adversaries for the PCs. The spy will most likely coordinate with them.

Does the White King control the territory downstream of Skyrim? If not, the PCs might end up as envoys to downstream cities. Getting out of the city will not be a problem because of the cliffs- the White King can't effectively invest that side of the city except from the air, and the heroes have a good chance of penetrating an aerial blockade.

Unless, of course, their own airship and the defending squadron are just as trapped by the barrier as the White King's airships are...


Assassinating the White King will not be possible for characters of the PCs' level unless they cheat a lot. He's too tough for them.

The city, Skyrim, is built along the edge of a 500' cliff, looking down over the ocean. A series of rivers flow from the nearby mountains, through Skyrim, and off the cliffs, providing drinking water for the citizens. It is tightly organized and militarized, and the defenses are quite strong - a series of strong walls with lightning cannon towers surround the entire city, and the defending soldiers are well-trained and well-equipped. Skyrim has a flight of 10 airships that provide aerial support, and a magical barrier has been erected around the city to prevent the airships from bombing the city from above and enemy spellcasting.

If the barrier doesn't fall, I'm inclined to say that the attackers are screwed if food supplies and medical care are sure things for the defenders. Unless, of course, the attackers have the capability to force a breach in the defenses.

Do they have offensive lightning "siege guns"? Are they familiar with the tactics of scientific siegecraft as found in gunpowder-era Europe?

- Poison the rivers leading into the city?

Hard to do.

Poisoning a fast-flowing river is only a reliable way of killing people who drink from the river during the (brief) interval in which the poison is flowing past. Besides, poisoning the river will kill soldiers just as often as civilians.

Using an incapacitating poison that makes it difficult for warriors to defend themselves (a powerful Strength poison?), maybe. Depends how heavily the defenders rely on their emplaced batteries (pun totally intended) and how heavily they rely on the fighting ability of their own troops.

- Magically protect the airships with Fire Shield / Protection from Energy (fire), to prevent the phoenix from destroying them?

If it can be done, sounds cool. Will that get them through the barrier, though?

Try to get an estimate of how long the barrier will last if both sides work on it as hard as they can. That tells you a lot about the timing of the siege, which in turn tells you what kind of missions the PCs face.

- Tunnel under the city using trained bulettes or delvers?

Could work. Lots of precedents for it.

Do the defenders have suitable techniques to detect and foil mining attempts?

[Doomsy]

The city, Skyrim, is built along the edge of a 500' cliff, looking down over the ocean. A series of rivers flow from the nearby mountains, through Skyrim, and off the cliffs, providing drinking water for the citizens. It is tightly organized and militarized, and the defenses are quite strong - a series of strong walls with lightning cannon towers surround the entire city, and the defending soldiers are well-trained and well-equipped. Skyrim has a flight of 10 airships that provide aerial support, and a magical barrier has been erected around the city to prevent the airships from bombing the city from above and enemy spellcasting.


Pull the ships away from bombing the shield and blow chunks out of the cliff to undermine the whole structure. This will destroy the walls and the towers on the seaward side at the very least, since you can destroy the bedrock they are built on, literally. Then send in airships loaded with troops to take advantage of the gap you just made in the defenses. Rings of feather fall on shock troopers will let them literally leap out of combat airships and rain down on key points and structures - probably the gates to let them inside. Note this


Other option: Use the water as the assault vector. If they flow into the city, you hit the entrance point using either infiltrators or an outright assault. Infiltrators will try to shut down the shield generators - er, magic artifacts, and/or let the enemy into the city. Assault forces will try to wreck the flow of water into the city to reduce your supplies.

On defense? Find ways to divert the water flow so it floods any holes the enemy is trying to dig. Wait for reinforcements. Use your own tunnels and knowledge of the land to engage in sabotage.

If the city is layered, with multiple walls, let the enemy in one stage at a time to destroy his troops. You slaughter them with fall back operations in a war of attrition and hope you win it. Sabotage what you can behind you and try to kill six of them for every one of you, or more. Turn it into a confused street fight with your forces being able to mount a defense in depth of territory they know very well. Use mages and other magic to operate an excellent communications and command system. Turn it into a nasty running battle.

Try to steal, sabotage, or disable the enemy ships without risking your own - aerial midnight raids using flying mounts or spells, etc.

[Triaxx]

Funny thing about rivers, is that with Soften Earth and Stone, they're very easy to divert. Soften the ground around the city, and they find themselves in the midst of a flood plain. Or just begin dumping tons of mud into the river. The water will become undrinkable fairly quickly, as well as beginning to clog.

Or kill some horses and dump the rotting carcasses into the river. Much more efficient than poison.

Alternatively you could slip around and infiltrate through the rivers as they exit the city. Drive anchors in and you can crawl up into the city that way.

Or if all else fails, Soften Earth and Stone until the city slides off into the water.

[kentma57]

keep casting earthquake untile the city falls into the ocean...

[Zenos]

What about:

Gas attack: If the attackers use some kind of poison gas spell or alchemical stuff that can bypass the barrier they may perhaps disable enough defenders to storm the walls, also, if you want to do a protracted siege:

Damming up the river: No water is far worse than no food. Use move earth and suddenly the defenders doesn't have Liquid Life, atleast not for everybody since clerics can make food and water, but ah well.

And what about catapults lobbing dispel magic ammo to open breeches in the barrier, what is the spell level of the barrier anyways?

[Treguard]

How "win-able" do you want this encounter to be for the party? Will the white king mount a full withdrawl if things start to turn sour or is this some final battle?

Are you anticipating certain events happening, leading into future encounters, eg. they repel the invaders- does the spy gets revealed? does he escape? would the shield be taken down? does the city, after all of the partys' efforts, still fall?

I throw these out because, as you've seen from the responses, we've got situations ranging from the challenging ("Oh man what's this guy throwing at us now?") to the catastrophic ("He's doing what?!.. O_o Oh shi- Evacuate! Every man for himself!") so it'd be good to get a sense of scale for how you'd see the encounter ending.

[leperkhaun]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm

At an angle to cause the cliff to start falling away from underneath the city.

cause a bit of damage like that, not destroy the whole city, get the people to submit, and have them rebuild.

[Yahzi]

He's not interested in the citizens, just the soldiers - he's fully willing to kill the entire city's nonmilitary population if need be.

This is a goal so at odds with all historical precedent as to be unimaginable.

It seems unlikely that soldiers would fight for a man who just murdered their entire family. It seems unlikely that any soldiers who were still alive after their families were killed would be worth anything - if they aren't willing to die to protect their families and their homes, what will they die for?

Historically, soldiers were worth less than a populace because you could get money from a populace. And the way you get soldiers is to apply money to a populace.

What your White King needs to do is terrorize the populace, not destroy them. I suggest loosing a dozen shadows in the slums. The high-levels will kill them, but not before they turn many peasants into shadows. Or cast contagion a few times.

They still have to fight to knock down the shield, but after that it's a war of terror, not destruction.

[Triaxx]

Didn't notice he wanted to capture the population.

Shapeshifter's are what you want. Shapeshift into fish, swim into the city, then take the place of public figures. (Have the assassin's kill the originals and the shifter's just take their places.) Now they can begin slowly destroying morale from within. Propose sorties into the enemy army, hoping to harrass, and drive them away. In truth it's more a way to break the morale of the population, who watch from within the walls as the soldiers are slaughtered mercilessly and as horribly as possible. Then slip the White King in under the effects of a polymorph spell, then alter self to become the mayor. Then convince the populace that he's discovered a long lost power that will enable the populace to fight off the invaders, provided they willingly accept it.

Instant win if the PC's don't figure out the plot. If they do, then all the spies in power can decry them as traitors working for the White King. Holding a trial under combat conditions is always difficult. But having them end up fugitives is even better.

[Doresain]

This is a goal so at odds with all historical precedent as to be unimaginable.

It seems unlikely that soldiers would fight for a man who just murdered their entire family. It seems unlikely that any soldiers who were still alive after their families were killed would be worth anything - if they aren't willing to die to protect their families and their homes, what will they die for?

the nifty thing about DnD is that there are spells that can easily remedy this problem

but anyways, if the King has no problems using undead, why not send disease ridden zombies or wights up the river to attack the citizens? the zombies would not only contaminate the water but would hopefully take out a few low level guys as well...the wights might not be able to contaminate the water, but they should have a somewhat easier time causing mayhem

[E_Samurai]

How "win-able" do you want this encounter to be for the party? Will the white king mount a full withdrawl if things start to turn sour or is this some final battle?

Ideally, the group will help the city to win a decisive victory. This should by no means be easy, though. The White King will withdraw if he's losing too many men - the whole point of the siege is to conquer the city to bolster his army for a larger siege down the road.

Are you anticipating certain events happening, leading into future encounters, eg. they repel the invaders- does the spy gets revealed? does he escape? would the shield be taken down? does the city, after all of the partys' efforts, still fall?

The spy will eventually be revealed - what happens then is up in the air. It's likely he'll escape. The shield will definitely fall fairly early on in the battle.

[Meat Shield]

Well if the shield is going to fail early on, the best way to do it is simply overwhelm the city at every point, including above, below, and on the perimeter. The PCs cannot be everywhere at once, and with the numerical superiority, the bad guys will get through.

That being said, since you want the PCs to win (weak!), have three main thrusts for the bad guys - one above, and either two through the walls or one at the walls and one from under or through the water. Let the PCs decide which one they want to stop first, then second, then third. These should be very challenging for them - make them use their (real) brains, not just their dice. Since they will have to get them immediately after each other, they will not heal or be out of consumables by the last one. Adter the last effort is repulsed, then maybe the BBEG can call it a day, the shield is restored, whatever.

[Zenos]

If the shield fails early on, just use the lightning cannos to shoot down airships and if possible, any anti-air defences they have, then one of the attackers airships deploys a small fireteam of assassins who are remarkable like the adventurer team, even the same level.

[Jastermereel]

Don't assassinate the leaders.

Use the assassins to frame the city's leader and general as the bad guys and the cleric as the good guy. If you can find a way to undermine, not the city's supports, but the leader's supports, then the "willing populace" clause comes into play. The PCs would need to fend off a dominated populace (non-lethal damage field-day) while find a way to rekindle support of the leaders or at least renew animosity towards the cleric.

Assassinating the leaders early on will just further polarize the population against you. Heck, have the cleric air-drop aid packages to the city only to have the citizens watch as the supplies are destroyed by the magical barrier and the fanatical phoenix. After taking out a palate of food (good food, mind you, not poisoned) or two, the Phoenix might even have to question if its really fighting corruption through its actions.

[Mewtarthio]

This is a goal so at odds with all historical precedent as to be unimaginable.

It seems unlikely that soldiers would fight for a man who just murdered their entire family. It seems unlikely that any soldiers who were still alive after their families were killed would be worth anything - if they aren't willing to die to protect their families and their homes, what will they die for?

Historically, soldiers were worth less than a populace because you could get money from a populace. And the way you get soldiers is to apply money to a populace.

Did you miss the part about the mind-control artifact?

Don't assassinate the leaders.

Use the assassins to frame the city's leader and general as the bad guys and the cleric as the good guy. If you can find a way to undermine, not the city's supports, but the leader's supports, then the "willing populace" clause comes into play. The PCs would need to fend off a dominated populace (non-lethal damage field-day) while find a way to rekindle support of the leaders or at least renew animosity towards the cleric.

Assassinating the leaders early on will just further polarize the population against you. Heck, have the cleric air-drop aid packages to the city only to have the citizens watch as the supplies are destroyed by the magical barrier and the fanatical phoenix. After taking out a palate of food (good food, mind you, not poisoned) or two, the Phoenix might even have to question if its really fighting corruption through its actions.

That'd seem more like a taunt to me. Since the barrier's clearly there, it would be tantamount to piling food outside a starving city and lighting a bonfire. And how would the spies go about undermining the morale of the city, anyway? From what I can tell, this guy is basically a walking avatar of Despair: He makes it look like you've got no hope, and then you're vulnerable to the mind-control artifact. I can't imagine he's particularly good at propaganda besides the "You are going to lose" variety.

[Jastermereel]

That'd seem more like a taunt to me. Since the barrier's clearly there, it would be tantamount to piling food outside a starving city and lighting a bonfire. And how would the spies go about undermining the morale of the city, anyway? From what I can tell, this guy is basically a walking avatar of Despair: He makes it look like you've got no hope, and then you're vulnerable to the mind-control artifact. I can't imagine he's particularly good at propaganda besides the "You are going to lose" variety.

With the bonfire, he'd be destroying food. With the air-dropped supplies, the city's shields are doing the damage. Admittedly, it leaves the question of why the city is under siege open.

Perhaps planting a replica of the same artifact? If the people become suspicious that the city's rulers have been using mind control, they might not be such staunch supporters. Perhaps have of of the assassins masquerade as an ordinary citizen flee the city (pursued by guards idealy) delivering the replica relic to the cleric so that he may destroy it in view of the citizens.

This "avatar of Despair" business is really just an image problem. He doesn't need assassins, he needs personal relations people (calling them propagandists just compounds the issue). If he needs a semi-compliant populace to dominate them, he should stage the artifact destruction and then leave, secretly leaving behind a tiny covert team to dominate the populace when they begin to doubt their leaders.

Consider this, once the "siege" is over, if even a few of the city's population have doubts about their leader's benevolence, it's perfect evidence that without the relic their leader's mind-control is waning. It's also easy to guarantee with the remaining infiltrators. Have them plant the initial seeds of doubt (if there aren't any to start with); once a real citizen becomes vocal, have him assassinated.

With the real threat of the cleric out of sight, and the false but very visible "threat" of the waning control of the mind-controlling dictator, the situation should soon become ideal for the real relic to be used.

[Yahzi]

Did you miss the part about the mind-control artifact?

I thought it was described as affecting a willing populace, not an incensed army.

But if not, then all he needs to do is penetrate the shield and activate the artifact. So the White King will lead a spearhead thrust into the city. Foiling that is a perfect role for the PCs.

[Jastermereel]

I thought it was described as affecting a willing populace, not an incensed army.

That was my impression, but the more I think about it the less it makes sense. If it only dominates willing populaces...wouldn't it just be easier to, well, ask politely? Now I'm rather curious if it stops working when they stop being willing.

[Subotei]

A couple of Old Skool suggestions that have worked in historical situations:

1. Starve them out - hard in a magical environment but you never know.

2. Bribe a faction within the city to open the gates - usually the second most powerful faction in a city is keen to see the most powerful go down as long as they get 'power'.

Alternatively you could go for one long, drawn out assault to make sure the defenders (especially the magic users) get no rest and end up dog tired and without spells.

If the city only has the river as a water source then the siege should be over relatively quickly - just let the surrounding army use it as their latrine and the defenders should all be so sick that you could walk in.

[Jastermereel]

A couple of Old Skool suggestions that have worked in historical situations:

1. Starve them out - hard in a magical environment but you never know.

2. Bribe a faction within the city to open the gates - usually the second most powerful faction in a city is keen to see the most powerful go down as long as they get 'power'.

Alternatively you could go for one long, drawn out assault to make sure the defenders (especially the magic users) get no rest and end up dog tired and without spells.

If the city only has the river as a water source then the siege should be over relatively quickly - just let the surrounding army use it as their latrine and the defenders should all be so sick that you could walk in.

But you don't get to use the weird relic of consensual domination.