- Walls, watchtowers, moats, scouts, sentries, regular drilling, arms stashes, food, water and supply stashes, siege engines...
- Poisons, diseases, scorched earth, find enemies of your enemy, foster war between the enemies...
- Healers, priests, mercenaries, war beasts...
- Swearing fealty to a powerful overlord, making your plight a crusade, calling in old favours...
Traps.
When fighting a superior military force, use guile, deception, and traps.
Basically, invent fantasy IEDs.
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Is there a quarry nearby? If there is, build good thick walls around your town. Then you can do one of two things.
1.0 Against orcs, who are fairly intelligent, you can have guardsmen pelt them with arrows. The orcs will probably try and charge through the main gate. Lock it tight. Put a small battalion of shield-carriers behind sharp wooden stakes (preferably poisoned), but make sure each of your shield carriers haves chugged a vial of antivenom so you're own tactics can't be reversed in a melee.
Caltrops are good. They're always good. Poison is nice as well here. Use fire arrows to distract the goblins so that they run into the poisoned caltrops if they're not taking the bait.
Finally, if you've got at least one or two low level magic-users, have them set up a Silent Image of a large pit trap in front of the city gate. But make sure that when the spell activates, it looks less like a pit trap has been formed, but more like a pit trap has been revealed . That will slow them down wile they try to figure out how to cross the non-existant hole. They'll try jumping or vaulting over it, but until someone falls in or throws something into it, they don't get a check to disbelieve. While they're figuring out what to do, arrows, arrows, arrows. Preferably, again, poisoned arrows, since orcs are very tough, and it'll give you're defenders an advantage. And in case people are worried about the moral repercussions, make sure to use strength draining poison, or sleep poison. Make them nonlethal, but give your defenders a combat advantage nevertheless. It might even dissuade more raiders if you choose to use the kind of poison that leaves them puking for days afterward.
If the goblins breech your defenses, set war hounds on them.
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Walls are pretty nice, especially if the town guards are trained archers. The wall could be used to gain Higher Ground and Cover advantage against approaching enemies even if the enemy also uses ranged attacks.
A moat around the wall prevents enemies from easily storming the wall. You can put piranhas in there if you like. Don't put in the Leech swarm, you don't want that creeping into town, it has land-based movement. I think the Jellyfish swarm is oceanic-only. But in general swarms in the water are hard to fight.
Make sure that directly around the wall, within ranged distance (several increments), there's nothing enemies could use as cover. This is good for shooting down approaching enemies, and for preventing them sneaking up on you.
Post guards at night.
Drill the town guard and population on how to respond to alarms.
Study what kind of creatures live in your area, and make sure you have the weapons to hurt them.
Drill the population on how to put out fires.
Stock food and have a clean water supply.
Consider building a secret escape tunnel, so you can slip out behind enemy lines. Handy if you need to send out a call for reinforcements. Don't tell the local population, because then it won't be a secret anymore. Put in a guardian critter that can frighten off kids without a bloodbath, but also kill lone orc scouts. Make sure you can collapse the tunnel if it becomes a liability.
Drill the population on how to best take advantage of channelled healing bursts, and how to stand farther apart to avoid fireballs. If the population doesn't survive the village is pointless.
Try to build houses in stone, not easily combustible materials.
Store medical supplies.
Whine at religious leaders until they come by to cast a Hallow at your temple. This is your shelter in case undead attack (boost to channeled energy) or outsiders.
Train the population to report suspicious events; orc scouts but also people acting odd (perhaps Charmed). Take them seriously but avoid panics.
Have a big bell you can ring to sound the alarm, so that people in the fields can be warned too. Drill people that when the alarm sounds, they stay inside the walls, no going out to fetch people; that's a military decision.
Patrol the wider area around the village. Mounted patrols cover a lot of ground and are fast enough to report back in case they spot something. Animal companions, familiars etc. that can fly are also good.
Have really big lanters/braziers ready to light up the town in case of an attack at night. Don't allow orcs to use their Darkvision to make the people fight blindly.
Clear the bushes around roads leading back to the civilized world, to make it harder to ambush traders. You might need goods from the civilized world, or news; you want to make sure travel isn't too dangerous.
so you have no arcane caster ...
anyhow, alter self your warrior as an orc, let him challenge the orc boss to a duel, (win), be master of orcs, (enslave/employ them to work in the mines)..
What kind of war beasts other than oxen did you have in mind?
Dogs spring to mind, they're easily trained. And a commoner with a crossbow on horseback may be ineffective as an actual damage dealer, but it makes for a decent harrier.
Alternatively: flee. Pack up everything of value, and evacuate the whole town. Being a refugee sucks, but being dead sucks worse.
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Dig a somewhat shallow moat, line the wall side with sharpened stakes(fire-harden the tips). Randomly place dug and cover spiked pits in the moat. Horde alchemist's fire near the obvious breach points of the wall like gates, to repel invaders and to help light any seige equipment. Also if you have lots of lumber why not go with a tall outer wall and a shorter inner wall to fall back to. 50 guards is alot of manpower and moving earth is a fairly fast thing to do....and you could use the removed earth as an outer wall to the moat, build a picket/wicker fence, mix the earth with straw and water, cover the fence, viola! Tough lil' wall.
For the gates, a rigged collapsible wooden bridge over a deepened section of moat is probably a good idea.
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In these tunnels there is a giant ant colony, would there be a way to form an alliance or domesticate them?
You could awaken the queen of the colony, then negotiate an alliance that would benefit them and help in the defense of the town (and ultimately the ants, if evil takes the town the ants will probably be destroyed). Perhaps start providing the ants with a steady supply of sugar or food as a means of barter for services. Just make sure you only awaken the queen, she can control the rest of the hive.
Also ants would be a HUGE help with any digging, tunneling defenses....| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Step One: Never watch/read 'The Walking Dead' those guys can't fortify anything.
In these tunnels there is a giant ant colony, would there be a way to form an alliance or domesticate them?
Nope, they're mindless vermin. But if you could "kidnap" the queen, all workers would follow and attack anyone and anything near her.
You could awaken the queen of the colony
Alas, no. Giant Ants are vermin, not animals.
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Dogs are particularly fine because they make good guards. As a druid you could try training owls, too.
Orcs have Light Sensitivity and Darkvision, so expect attacks to take place at night. Make sure the gates are shut before dark.
Orcs do a lot of damage but have unimpressive AC. Keeping them at a distance with walls and pikes while you pepper them with arrows would be ideal.
Train groups of archers to concentrate fire on the chieftains; it says in the monster description that if the leaders are killed the rest is likely to flee. Make sure you can recognize the chieftains, although that shouldn't be hard, probably the orc with the most bling-bling.
Orc will saves are just plain bad. You have a good chance of throwing them into disarray with well-placed Hold, Sleep and Charm spells.
If you've got walls and a moat, there'll remain a narrow strip of land leading up to the gate. Have vats of burning/boiling oil ready to pour in on that causeway, to deny them the opportunity to charge your gates. If you make it sufficiently narrow (maximum one cart wide), then they won't be able to easily use a battering ram.
Did I mention using extremely solid gates? If they're not too big, they can be quickly repaired with Make Whole/Mending in between engagements.
Orcs are mostly dangerous in melee. So you could create two gates in succession, framed by walls; if the orcs breach the first gate, they're now in a bow with archers above it, shooting down. The Killing Alley.
If the orcs bring an ogre or troll as heavy gatecrashing weapon, kill it with extreme prejudice. Once again, those creatures are weak to Will saves. If you've got a large creature in the Killing Alley, use Hold Person and then coup de grace it from atop the walls (make sure that you can reach that far with a Reach weapon when constructing the gate). Same story if it's still on the causeway, just in front of the door. Make sure this is okay with the DM first.
I don't think you can domesticate ants; you need to be pretty high level to talk to them with Speak to Animals. But you might be able to lure them with a sugar trail; if you study their behavior, you could take advantage of it.
I like the idea of Awakened trees, although by the time you can afford to do that, you might want to just take the offensive and exterminate the orc menace.
haha. Awakening the queen seems like a big risk, unless you have some leverage to keep her in check. Consider building in a contingency (as in the actual spell) to kill her off in an emergency, should it become necassary to clear out the ant infestation...
People have discovered the outer defenses fairly well.
If the walls fall have a rally point, possibly an escape route, for one final stand. A nice choke point where the PCs need to hold for some time. This gets interesting when the bodies start piling up and the bodies start becoming used as walls.
Decoy (scarecrows) on walls so they always look manned.
Dogs. Little terrier type rat dogs raise a lot of noise when anything comes near. A few bigger mastif type attack dogs to bite the ones the smaller dogs find.
Alchemical weapons like acid and fire should be effective against orcs and goblins with the splash damage.
Moats, ballistae, and catapults scare the carp out of people even when not effective at hitting anything. A barrelful of flaming oil will make people pause even if it doesn't hit.
Push back the forest so they don't have cover to sneak in close.
Noise traps to alert the sentries.
Disinformation (go kill a couple of orc patrols with goblin weapons and leave a couple of goblin bodies behind).
Start rumors that would attract adventurers. Lots of adventurers. Reap the profits as they lay waste to the surrounding landscape.
1.) Get rid of the ants: The accursed things are likely to eventually screw up your defenses with their tunneling, digging a passage enemies can use to invade your mines.
2.) Make a peace treaty with the orcs. Offer them a bounty on goblin heads. Be ready for them to betray you as soon as that seems profitable.
3.) Build the standard defenses: Walls, a moat, traps. Layer the town's defenses so invaders are forced into killing fields, trapped, then slaughtered.
4.) Give regular offerings to local nature spirits, dryads, and the like. They may warn you if enemies approach.
5.) Savagely retaliate against anyone or thing that troubles your townsfolk. Dip their heads in tar, then plant them on spikes over the town gates.
6.) Teach your people to fight. Demand they train regularly with weapons.
7.) Clear any potential cover or concealment away from your town. Leave a few obvious spots for enemies attempting surveillance. Carefully measure the area's distance from the walls and maintain seige weapons with pre-aimed target spots in the "ambush zone". If enemies are suspected in the area, unleash Hell on them.
8.) Be alert to "counter mines", tunnels meant to access your mines. Place troops where they can respond to such. If worst comes to worst, use burning oil to kill everything in the mines by eliminating the oxygen.
Scorched Earth Tactics:
1. Destroy all the crops around the town.
2. Poison all the drinkable water outside of the town wells.
3. Eject from the town every person not capable of fighting to defend it, to marshal your own food and water supply.
It worked in the Middle Ages...
It can all be summed up with one question: WWKD? (What would Kobolds do?)
Since they are pretty much the Viet Cong of the Fantasy RPG worlds, look up VC tactics as this is what the kobolds would do. IED's, punji sticks, etc.
Booby trap the almighty f$&@ out of the area. And learn to fight when orcs and goblins sleep. Hunt them while they sleep and rest.
Research their superstitions and engage in Psyops warfare. Make them afraid to sleep, afraid to leave their camps.
Take the fight to them, don't waste so many resources defending.
Watch 13 assassins. It has more town defending ideas than any movie I've ever seen.
My favorite: Angry Oxen covered in lamp oil. Start the stampede then light them on fire. It's win-win. Enemy defeated and ready to eat BBQ!
Establish a central keep as a rally point and stronghold from which you can raid. Ensure that it has enough supplies to withstand a lengthy seige while sheltering most of your town's population. Build the keep where it commands a view of the town's main streets, fill it with heavy crossbows and bolts, then give it a pair of postern gates so your troops can sally forth against any foes in the town.
Structure the town's defenses so invaders must penetrate multiple layers. If they get over the walls, they find themselves trapped between the wall and stone buildings inside. If they take over the mine from below, they find that the mine entrances had removable wooden walkways over 30 ft. wide, 20 ft. deep pits.
Put murder holes over every doorway. Put a firing step on each side of each doorway, with arrow slits on either side. Eliminate thatched roofs: Use slate or tile.
Historically, moats were filthy, basically filled with sewage. Put pungi stakes in the water to maximize the nasty effects.
Train the villagers to improve their quality as militia. Historically, Flemish peasants armed with godentags (two-handed morningstars with spear points so they could be set against cavalry) tore the hell out of French knights. I'd train half your force as crossbowmen and half as close-order infantry. Punish any who refuse to train or interfere with the training of others.
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Train the villagers to improve their quality as militia. Historically, Flemish peasants armed with godentags (two-handed morningstars with spear points so they could be set against cavalry) tore the hell out of French knights. I'd train half your force as crossbowmen and half as close-order infantry. Punish any who refuse to train or interfere with the training of others.
It should be noted that in that famous battle (the Battle of Golden Stirrups, 1302), the French knights fought the Flemish infantry in a swamp.
So if the orcs start using mounted tactics, invest in Difficult Terrain. Conversely, if you prefer mounted tactics against the orcs, pick your battlegrounds wisely.
A ring of goblin/orc heads on spikes surrounding the moat filled with something flamable.
1) Restrict access points. Only have a few ways in or out of town with the rest defended by preferrably natural landscape. High walls with guards and an exterior moat will will work if the landscape doesnt. A big moat alone will do in a pinch.
2) A sturdy door on all the access points. Gotta be able to close it off in case of attack.
3) Crap ton of archers on the walls. Or wizards. Bonus points for having wands of fireball, or other area damage. There was one that caused damage, but also made the ground difficult terrain. Stone spikes or something.
4) Emergency supplies in case of prolonged siege.
haha. Awakening the queen seems like a big risk, unless you have some leverage to keep her in check. Consider building in a contingency (as in the actual spell) to kill her off in an emergency, should it become necassary to clear out the ant infestation...
Exploding collar comes to mind.
Another common tactic in fortifications was an obvious weak point that allowed entry past the outer wall. But it was really to funnel the attackers into 'kill box' where they could be eliminated by concentrated fire.
For example:
The east gate tower area never quite got finished. The draw bridge doesn't raise because the winch mechanism hasn't been installed. The rather weak gate is in place but the portcullis is not. The gate is sufficient to stop a small squad, but a serious attack can make it through.
When they make it through the gate they learn there are movable barricades blocking off the streets and the wooden buildings actually have tone walls with wood on the outside. Guards are already dropping barrels of burning pitch into the kill box. Then the drawbridge explodes behind them.
summon natures ally to get a mite, see if he can manipulate the vermin
you have lots 'siege/town' spells from druid 3 and cleric 5
0th: create water, detect poison, light, spark,
1st: call animal, detect lots, Expeditious Excavation, goodberry,
2nd: augury, consecrate, endure elements, masterwork transformation, forest friend, campfire wall, animal messenger, soften earth and stone, woodshape,
3rd: animate dead, continual light, create food and water, stone shape, glyph warding symbol healing
Either hunt down and slay a ton of Orcs or go with your very best in diplomats and parlay with them.. if you have something they can benefit from, offer to start trade. If all you have is coin, pay them off OR hire them to be your scouts.
Pay the Orcs to hunt Goblins with a bounty paid per ear or similar...
Hire a party of adventurers to hunt Orcs/Gobbos for you...
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For those with concerns about the giant ants: The Vermin Heart feat allows the druid to treat them like Animals with respect to all his nifty druid abilities, including animal-only spells. Y'know, like charm animal. . . muwahahaha . . .
The earliest serious fortifications were castles called "Motte and Bailey's". They were very easy to defend and cheap and easy to build. The Duke of Normandy literally built one on the coast of France, disassembled it, loaded it onto boats, sailed across the English Channel, and reassembled it on the other side in less than 48 hours.
In short: You dig a giant trench/ditch. Use the dirt you dug up to build a big hill (or motte). Put a wooden tower (or bailey) on top of the hill. Then build a wooden wall on the inside of the ditch.
Attackers have to negotiate the ditch before they can assault the wall, the wall before they can assault the motte, and the motte before they can take the bailey.
After it is constructed, you can pretty safely begin improving it with towers, outliers, stakes, moats, replacing wood with stone, ballistae and catapults, making it higher/deeper/steeper, etc., etc.
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In this case I would instruct townsfolk that no farms are to be built beyond the range of the town's warning bells. In case of an attack everyone should be able to flee back behind the town walls.
Training the population should focus on survival; how to evacuate, how to put out fires, how to respond to orc terror tactics.
I intentionally didn't mention putting heads on pikes because that runs the risk of actually increasing orc aggression. It might work on goblins though, but it might also be a breeding ground for disease/necromancy. You really don't want any orc ghosts looking for vengeance, those could decimate your population.
I wouldn't want the town to look too grim; defenses should be serious, but I don't know if having really sadistic things will really make the population feel better.
It's important that your defenses will not lead to grizzly accidents with your own population; playing children getting gutted by traps is not good for morale. Remember that people have to live here.
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Using bodies of water such as moats and artificial ponds can force your enemies into certain areas and reduce the viability of siege engines, should those become a problem. Plus, the ponds and moats can double as a food source for your population by stocking them with fish. Heck, depending on the environment, systems of rice paddies with causeways can funnel traffic and provide fish, rice, and waterfowl for your population. There're some good reasons Southeast Asia is hell to invade.
Throw in a few easy-to-destroy bridges in key locations, and you make it even more work for an invading force to bring anything other than footsoldiers in quickly.
Make sure the community has adequate stores of essential goods such as granaries and cisterns well within the defensible area. Those tunnels underneath the town make for a truly great defense feature; underground storage is climate-controlled, making it easier to store perishable goods. You can also make gravity work in your favor by creating the cisterns underground, too. In a hot environment, underground water storage is even better, because it reduces the threat of evaporation.
Check out some of the underground cities in Turkey [should be easy to Google] for inspiration. Dragon Magazine even did an article [issue #201, I think] on such sites.
More ideas as they trickle in to my brain . . . love seeing the thoughts from other posters!