Plot idea: The Siege at Oleg's


Kingmaker


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At our last session, my PCs did battle with the mighty Grabbles, and they were lucky to escape with their lives. As they fought Grabbles and his honor guard, the little guy fell victim to a sleep spell and fell off Tickleback.

At the end of the combat, the party (nearly out of HP and spells) woke Chief Grabbles and negotiate with him to take the kobold statue.

A few things come into play here:

1) The PCs encountered the moon radish patch, but they have not yet met Chief Sootscale and his clan.

2) The PCs slaughtered their way through a chunk of the mites, but did not encounter the giant whiptail centipede.

3) The PCs are actively after the kobolds, but they have not yet decided whether to set phasers to "negotiate" or "slaughter."

4) After the mite battle, the group retreated to Oleg's to heal up and give the barbarian time to recover from a nasty case of red ache. (Always remember to disinfect tick bites, folks!) This has taken about two weeks.

So here's the scenario I'm thinking of:

Spoiler:

Background
After Grabbles suffered what he considers an insulting, humiliating defeat, he wants revenge against the humans who humiliated him. Now that the humans have the kobolds' statue, he sends peace overtures to the Sootscales, trying to convince them the humans are their common enemy.

Chief Sootscale isn't interested in a war with the humans, so Tartuk engineers a coup. Sootscale and a few loyal kobold minions fled the caverns. Chief Sootscale himself is now camped somewhere in the Greenbelt.

Grabbles and Tartuk, working together, assault Oleg's with a combined mite-kobold army.

Set-up

Next time they leave Oleg's, the PCs will encounter a bedraggled Chief Sootscale and his kobold retainers. Unless the PCs initiate hostilities, Sootscale and his retainers will not fight them. If the PCs negotiate with Sootscale, they will learn that Tartuk, the old shaman, is the new kobold leader. He's made friends with the mites and is planning to get back at the humans for taking the statue ... and that Tartuk is working with Grabbles to launch an attack on Oleg's. Sootscale asks for the PCs' help taking down Tartuk.

At this point, I think there's a fork, depending on what my players do.

If they give Sootscale the statue, he will act as he does in the vanilla module and encourage the PCs to help him overthrow Tartuk.

If they head for the Sootscale Caverns, the PCs will face down Tartuk and his kobold faction, with a couple mites thrown in for good measure. If this happens, then the siege (below) will include no kobold troops.

If the PCs return to Oleg's Rest, they will prepare defenses, and they will face a siege at Oleg's Rest.

The Siege

I haven't decided whether to introduce mass combat rules yet, but here's how I see things shaking out. We have three possible factions:

Kobolds. The kobolds are ostensibly here to get their statue back, but they're really here because Tartuk enjoys engineering chaos among kobolds. Like any good manipulative leader, Tartuk's not going to be here at the front lines. Instead, he's sent his apprentice to lead his troops. These consist of:
Kobolds

  • Tartuk's Militia (15 kobolds, ordinary, armed with spears and shortbows)
  • Kobold engineers (4 kobolds, warrior 2, plus 1 kobold, expert 1, who man a small catapult)
  • Commander: Captain Redbeak (Kobold sorcerer 2)

Mites
  • Mite-y Regulars (15 mites, ordinary, armed with darts, daggers, and spears.
  • Mite-y Air Patrol (2 mites, warrior 2, mounted on giant flies). Their leader is Captain Aggrad (mite, alchemist 1), mounted on a giant wasp.
  • Giant whiptail centipede
  • Giant centipedes (2)
  • Grabbles bodyguards (2 advanced mites, warrior 2)
  • Commander: Chief Grabbles, mite fighter 3.

Humans
  • Jhod Kavken, cleric 4
  • Kesten Garess, fighter 3
  • Kesten's troopes, 3 human warriors (level 2)
    [*}Two redeemed bandits (human, warrior 1)

I'm still playing with tactical ideas. Among them, I imagine:

The Mite-y Air Patrol will attempt to inflict damage on Oleg's Rest from the sky. Captain Aggrad (wearing a special leather helmet with goggles) would drop bombs from above. The rest of the Air Patrol will use the wasps to attempt to steal anything of value that they find. After a few rounds, they'll start airdropping mites into the Oleg's Rest interior.

Meanwhile, the Mite-y Regulars will use the giant whiptail centipede as a siege ladder, attempting to breach Oleg's walls either mounted on the centipede or just climbing over him. The other giant centipedes will be used for general battlefield havoc.

Meanwhile, the kobolds will mount a somewhat more conventional assault on Oleg's Rest's other side. The Kobold Engineers will use their catapult to try to breach Oleg's Rest's Walls while Tartuk's Militia uses their bows to pick off anybody who walks on the walls. If the Engineers manage to breach the wall, then Tartuk's Militia will charge in. Mostly, they will be looking for the statue.

Negotiation?

The mites are out for revenge and blood, so negotiating with them won't be very fruitful. However, the PCs may be able to negotiate with the kobolds. If they give the kobolds their statue, then the kobolds will leave the field of battle if their attitude can be raised to friendly. Similarly, the PCs can convince the Engineers to quit the field if they deploy Chief Sootscale to convince them to leave.

Siege: Alternate Scenario

If the PCs went to Sootscale Cavern's rather than Oleg's Rest, they will encounter a somewhat different scenario. In this case, they will return to Oleg's Rest to find that the mites have successfully laid siege to the outpost. The gates will be broken down. Olege and Svetlana will be holed up in his office, with Kesten and Jhod fighting a desperate action to hold off the mites.

In this case, the PCs will need to fight their way through the mites (as listed above) if they hope to rescue Oleg and Svetlana. In this case, the mites will be scattered around Oleg's rest, pillaging, and generally being ridiculous. I plan to draw inspiration from the Gremlins movies in this scenario. The whiptail centipede and the Mite-y Air Patrol will still be an issue, however.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? I'm still tinkering with the Mite-y Air Patrol. I just really like the picture of a little blue mite, in World War I pilot's gear, mounted on a giant wasp and dropping bombs on the PCs.

From a crunch perspective, this probably outclasses my PCs, who just hit level 2. On the other hand, I think the siege will be a great way for them to get to know Kesten and Jhod. Also, they don't get the "set up a kingdom" charter until book 2 (obviously), but I'd like to give them an early taste of defending their land.


Follow-up:

Spoiler:

If we end up with a siege situation, I think I would use the troop subtype for Tartuk's Militia and the Mite-y Regulars, but leave the Air Patrol, the centipedes, and the engineers as separate NPCs along with the respective commanders. That seems like a good compromise between mass-combat rules and having to roll too many dice.


This amuses me and it seems like something the Mites would do, if a little more proactive than normal. But hey, vengeance is motivating.

And yes, bomber Mites is an amusing mental picture. GO for it =)


Thx. Do you know anything about using the troop subtype? Is it even viable for non-mass combat?

BTW: Dialogue from last game:

Player: "I'm beginning to like alchemists!"
Me: "You know, bad guys can be alchemists, too."


Heheheheh.

The Exchange

I've to do something like this.

Mi PC killed the mites, then negotiate a peace with the kobolds, and after that they killed the kobolds in the radish pack.

the kobolds felt betrayed and with the rissing anger the march to Oleg's.

The PC's saw the smoke and flames when they were arriving, they fight several kobolds to reach the fort, and arrive in the exact moment that Oleg's were slayed.


Yeeow. That's some pretty nasty consequences!


I ran a modified version of this yesterday, with Tartuk as a summoner with one mythic tier. Here's how it went down:

The Siege of Oleg's Rest:
Nakpik (a 2nd level ranger in my game) was at Oleg's with two minion kobolds when the PCs arrived, angry about the Stag Lord's bandits attacking kobolds. The PCs smoothed over his feelings and explained the Stag Lord situation to him.

Kesten Garess told the PCs his scouts had word that mites were marching toward Oleg's and a purple kobold was seen with him.

I gave the PCs two days and a 5,000 gp budget (representing Oleg's stores) to prepare for the attack. I told them Oleg's stores could include up to three minor magic items.

The wizard got busy scribing scrolls, and they picked out some minor items .. including a Necklace of Fireballs (?!) I did not expect this bit, but it is on the list of "minor magic items," so I decided to let them have the thing. Maybe a little too nice of me, but they did act within the limits I set, so I allowed it.

Knowing the mites approached, the PCs set up their forces (Kesten Garess, some reformed bandits, and Nakpik and his friends) around the fort. They had two soldiers in a tower to run one of the catapults (just fixed).

Amid all of this, Jhod Khavken performed a wedding ceremony for two redeemed bandits who had been canoodling. Jhod was very, very firm that the two needed to form a family rather than continue their affair willy-nilly. The party wizard, a devout follower of Calistria, considered this heresy.

The mites attacked the next day.

The actual attack came in three waves.

The first wave was Chief Grabbles (now on a giant ant) with ten mites and a whiptail centipede. A catapult shot took out about half of the mites. Meanwhile, the giant whiptail centipede approached the gate. The centipede reared up against the gate, and the mites climbed up the centipede to go over the gate.

The PCs' melee machines and Kesten Garess engaged with the centipede. Garess went down rather quickly. The caterpillar's poison knocked his Dex down to 0, leaving Kesten out of the fight. As the PC fighters and the soldiers meleed with the centipede and mites, Chief Grabbles headed to a tower to take out the PC mage and alchemist.

The mage and alchemist actually had a little trouble with Grabbles and his steed, but they eventually took him out with bombs and burning hands. Meanwhile, the centipede was not much of a match for the raging barbarian's greataxe.

Next wave.

Lady Abblad (an alchemist) buzzed in on a giant wasp, with two wasp swarms at her command. Lady Abblad got into a bomb duel with the alchemist, while the wasp swarms, well, swarmed over defenders at the front wall. The swarms took two guards to negative hit points, and then they headed for the PCs. The alchemist and wizard knocked out Lady Abblad's wasp. Lady Abblad set off a smoke bomb to hide so she could heal. With her wasp minions gone, Lady Abblad retreated from the field of battle.

Meanwhile, the alchemist, wizard, and druid, duelled with the swarms. (Druid used gust of wind to some effect). Meanwhile, a call came up from the back ...

Third wave. Jhod Kavken called out, and the barbarian and druid moved to aid him. Tartuk was back there with ten mites and five catapults.

Ordinary mites were mainly a comedy adversary at this point, so I turned them into mite-apults. Over the course of several rounds, the mites loaded themselves into catapults and fired themselves. Several of them splatted against the walls rather than landing on top ..

Interestingly, one mite made it in and headed after a couple kobolds hiding under a table. Over the course of the rest of the melee, the two kobolds and the mite dueled with each other pathetically.

Meanwhile, Tartuk summoned Sharptooth, his eidolon.

Tartuk cast Mythic Enlarge Person on Sharptooth and set him loose. Sharptooth ripped through the PCs forces at the back wall. He knocked the barbarian to negative HP, ate poor Nakpik, and killed guards left and right. Tartuk himself, meanwhile, turned himself invisible with a spell.

GM Note. Here is where I ran into a problem as a GM. As a Huge eidolon, Sharptooh was overwhelming. Old Sharptooth was absolutely ridiculous. The PCs literally could not hit him with anything because of his armor class, and thanks to the Enlarge, he could kill any of them with a single hit. I don't completely oppose TPKs on principle, but this was completely ridiculous. For players, it's absolutely no fun to fight against an enemy who is effectively invulnerable and takes out party members with one hit.

So ... Tartuk dismissed Old Sharptooth and summoned a dire wolf instead. The players made short work of the wolf. Meanwhile, the wizard, after some clever listening and Perception skills, hit the invisible Tartuk with Burning Hands.

A peeved Tartuk hit the wizard with Reduce Person. (At this point, the wizard's player took on a high-pitched voice that cracked up all of us around the table).

The wizard threw a Scorching Ray at Tartuk, and Tartuk himself cast another invisibility spell and ran for it.

The party, meanwhile, used the opportunity to regroup. The druid, Jhod, and alchemist circulated the fort, healing people where they could. Meanwhile ... Tartuk was not giving up. Hidden in the stables, Tartuk performed a ritual that would summon Sharptooth once more. At a thematically appropriate moment, the gruesome twosome burst out of hiding, with Sharptooth normal sized, and Tartuk right behind him. Tartuk tried to catch the party with Black Tentacles, but they were spread out. The alchemist escaped the tentacles (lucky dog), and the barbarian moved to melee with Sharptooth. Tartuk cast Haste on both himself and Sharptooth.

Tartuk moved to the west side of the fort, while Sharptooth moved toward the east. The barbarian meleed with Sharptooth, and the Oleg, finally completely pissed off with the invasion, came down to attack Sharptooth himself. This did not end well, as Sharptooth completely demolished the non-combat trained Oleg Leveton.

The druid and the wizard, meanwhile, tried to contain Tartuk. The hasted Tartuk, ranting about "the Lady," and how she had given him power and promised him the group's heads, sped around the fort. He hit the dwarven druid with a pellet blast. The druid responded with faerie fire and storm bursts. The wizard, meanwhile (now returned to normal size), struggled to keep up with the super-fast Tartuk.

The alchemist threw bombs at Old Sharptooth for all he was worth.

FINALLY, the battle ended when the wizard zapped Tartuk with a Scorching Ray. Tartuk fell to the ground at negative hit points, and stabilized. Meanwhile, Old Sharptooth winked out of existence.

Next came something I have never seen before. All of the PCs converged on Tartuk to coup de grace him. Svetlana emerged from where she'd been hiding to whack him with a frying pan.

GM note. I considered this a victory. My players positively HATED Tartuk after everything he had done. He and Sharptooth nearly killed them the first time they met. Sharptooth has also been seen in the company of one Dovan of Nisroch.

After a few coup de graces, they finally killed Tartuk. When the did so, swirling leaves in the shape of a woman arose from his chest. This shape, with glowing eyes, stared at the PCs for a moment, then dissipated.

The PCs went to cleanup after this. Overall, this battle cost the lives of Nakpik, two bandits, a guardsman, and Oleg Leveton. The players took Tartuk's head as a gift for King Sootscale. They also held funerals fro the bandits, guardsman, and Oleg. The party barbarian seems to have a thing for Svetlana. Who knows what might bloom, or where she might turn in her grief?

In a coda, they returned to Sootscale Caverns to recount Nakpik's heroism to King Sootscale and to present him with Tartuk's head and Grabbles' armor and longspear. King Sootscale thanked them. He gave them 2000 gold pieces to split among them. King Sootscale also informed the group that the Old Sycamore is now part of the Sootscale Kingdom.

Further thoughts:
Final GM notes. This was a hell of a battle. From preparation to execution, this our entire game session of six hours. Even though we spent the entire day moving miniatures and rolling dice, we were all tired by the end of the thing. But the players told me they had fun.

Lessons learned. If I run this scenario again, I'm not going to have the Huge Sharptooth. He was completely overwhelming. It was almost like throwing Nyrissa herself at a first-level party. Instead of the mythic-level Enlarge Person, I would probably have Tartuk throw less over-the-top buffs on Sharptooth, with an emphasis on making him tough to hit but beatable, rather into an unstoppable flying tank.

I would also give the PCs less of a budget (maybe 3,000 gold) to prepare their defenses with. I think 5,000 was a little too much, given the equipment they managed to come up with.

If I run this again, I think I might also consider running a victory-point style scenario. Turn the guards and the mites into general color, while the PCs gain (or lose) victory points by taking out major figures like Grabbles, Abladd, and Tartuk.


That's awesome. I really wish I'd done something more with Tartuk.

Spoiler:
I think I'm going to add him - now a Summoner with an Old Sharptooth - to the group of enemies the party will soon be meeting as undead. That group currently includes Kressle (now a Wraith), Dovan (a Ghoul Deadly Dancer [3.5 Tome of Magic]), the Stag Lord (a flesh golem in the form of a stag-bodied centaur), the cave troll Kargadd (a big mean zombie or something, not sure yet), and Rigg Gargadilly (a wight). I was wanting to have an undead dragon in there somewhere - because who doesn't love undead dragons? - but the party made sure to use rest eternal on the dragons they did fight so can't do that without pulling one out of nowhere; tossing in Tartuk and Old Sharptooth however will give me options there =D

Thanks for the inspiration!


Plotwise, IMC Tartuk made common cause with the mites after the PCs invaded the mite lair (humiliating Chief Grabbles) and drove Tartuk away from the Sootscales.

On further reflection, I think I would address the overpowering issue by reducing the mite-apults (which I threw in for comic relief) and have the mystically enlarged Old Sharptooth assault Oleg's Rest's walls rather than party members. This would give me a good excuse to spare the PCs from his over-the-top attacks for a few rounds AND it would give the NPC fighters something to do while the PCs battle Sharptooth.

As far as your group ... have they taken on the big V yet? If not, I could see Tartuk leading this group to sneakily take down Vordekai, then take the Varnhold souls and the Eye of Abaddon for himself.


Not yet, but my Tartuk is very dead. The party chased him through the Sootscale lair and ganked him with a lucky color spray, then hauled him before Chief Sootscale for execution via stab in the heart. The gang mentioned in my above post won't be showing up until after Big V is gone - they've been revived by his former apprentice, a vampire sorcerer who was the sire to my group's spymistress, who was formerly a Dhampir prior to some reincarnate shenanigans.


IMC, I wouldn't feel right bringing Tartuk back as an undead for two reasons:

1. My players, a mildly bloodthirsty bunch, decapitated Tartuk and gave his head to King Sootscale as a trophy and with Grabbles' magic longspear and masterwork chain shirt. (Players: "Ooo, a magic longspear!!" Me: "It's small." Players: "Gift for Sootscale, then!") So, an undead Tartuk would have to be a headless Tartuk.

2. In their first encounter, Sharptooth nearly killed one of the PCs and was winning until they altered tactics. Tartuk ran away. Sharptooth then distracted the PCs so Dovan could get the drop on them in an ambush. And then they found out from a convenient wandering bandit that Dovan had been talking with "a sharp-toothed demon." So my players thought taking down Tartuk was one hell of an accomplishment. I don't want to take that away from them.


Yeah it was severely less climactic in mine, so I don't have that hangup. The Mite Chieftain was a much more thrilling battle.

The Stag Lord and Kressle also went down like chumps. (Kressle twice - she got brought back as a Kelpie by the Dancing Lady, and slaughtered again.) Bringing them back is a chance for them to actually make a decent impression.


Funny, in mine, the original mite chieftain was a pretty tough battle for the group. They faced down Grabbles, eight ordinary mites, four mite honor guards, Tickleback, and Grabbles himself in tight quarters. They survived mainly because the wizard uncorked a last-minute sleep spell. Although they won, the players had severely depleted their resources. They bluffed Grabbles into giving them the Sharptooth statue, then they ran like hell back to Oleg's.


My group had a pretty nasty barbarian who played whack-a-mole with 'em and set up flanking opportunities for Mikmek, who was an absolute badass despite having near-to-no HP - the dice loved him.

Also we use the crit cards and the Oracle got a crit with her Eldritch Bolt that swapped her across the battlefield with Grabbles. Everything went nuts after that point.


Nice. One other thing that I recall from my siege. The PCs pushed a cart in front of the door to Oleg's figuring it was a weak point and that the mites would try to knock it down. When the giant whiptail centipede climbed up against the wall, and then the mites started climbing up the centipede, one of my players just went, "Damn ... that's a really good idea!"

Fun stuff.


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*casts thread necromancy*

So I was inspired by this, but it went very differently, because of how my party interacted with the various Greenbelt factions. Specifically, we ended up with a bandit siege.

Spoiler:
The party hit Thorn River camp on the 2nd of Pharast, right at the start of the campaign. Kressle escaped and has become a significant thorn in their side over time and the Paladin's arch nemesis. She's been carrying out her own plans in the background and has become an important villain and the one the PCs hate the most. She wasn't about to return to the Stag Lord having failed and has instead been planning a coup against her alcoholic former boss. She wants to be the Bandit Queen.

Since then they've been taking their time exploring though and thanks to their interference with bandit activity in the region the Stag Lord has been over six weeks without fresh alcohol. He's sober and he's pissed.

It started with Dovan leading some bandits to harass them while they made camp, but they handled that. Now, they showed up at Bokken's to collect some potions and he frantically tells them that Oleg's is under attack and slams the door.

So they ride straight for Oleg's and arrive at like ten at night. There are maybe ten bandits on each side of the trading post and another ten guarding a small encampment, so around fifty total. Auchs is leading the men at the gate who are using longspears to force Beaky the Owlbear (in barding) to smash the gate in. Kesten Garess and his men are on the walls with bows.

From a distance they can recognise the Stag Lord's helm and see him overseeing things and they know he's an alcoholic from interrogating captured bandits. So the PCs hatch a plan to sneak closer to the encampment. The summoner and paladin (both female) are to bluff their way into the camp, while the bloodrager and oracle wait for the signal in case anything goes wrong.

The summoner is dressed up as a prostitute and they use the dust of illusion from the kobolds to disguise the paladin as a madam/pimp. They bluff their way in with saying they have booze and a girl for the Stag Lord. Amazingly the rolls go well and they are brought to Dovan who totally fails to see through the sham and the summoner is sent in to the Stag Lord. Meanwhile Dovan is making it clear that he wants the paladin in *his* tent.

So the summoner is flirting shamelessly with the Stag Lord and getting him more and more drunk, while the paladin goes with the Dovan situation, because he doesn't know she's armed and she thinks in his tent she could take him by surprise. She enters the tent... and Kressle is already in Dovan's bed. Undressed.

Back in the Stag Lord's tent the summoner convinces him to let her tie him up. She takes it even further with a blindfold and a gag and then COUP DE GRACES the guy. I was floored, but they earned it so hard. Amazing social rolls. (Don't worry about the anticlimax, I have it covered. Plus this was pretty climactic.)

For the paladin, things are not going as well, she goes with it at first, acting like she's up for the threeway, but Kressle recognises her voice from a previous encounter, grabs her own axe and attacks. Dovan is totally confused. Kressle's axe passes through the illusion on the paladin and only hits armour. All hell breaks loose.

Paladin wins initiative and withdraws from the tent, not wanting to be between Dovan and Kressle (haha). She shouts for the party and the Bloodrager and Oracle come running. Kressle is nowhere to be seen. Dovan fights briefly, but realises he is outmatched and also gets away. The party dispatch around ten bandits and head for the walls.

Next session will be the battle in front of the gate against Auchs, Owlbear and a small bandit army. What the player's don't know is that Kressle is going to take over the Stag Lord's fort, with Dovan as her right hand, so Akiros will still get his moment to change sides, because he doesn't like that at all. Kressle has been majorly built up for them though and I have levelled her over the weeks they were exploring. So I feel happy having her as the real end boss for them.

I'd love to hear what people think of how things panned out!


Stormchaser wrote:

*casts thread necromancy*

So I was inspired by this, but it went very differently, because of how my party interacted with the various Greenbelt factions. Specifically, we ended up with a bandit siege.

** spoiler omitted **...

Sounds like a rollicking good time.


Absolutely. The party was very much going about exploration as one might in a computer RPG, i.e. doing all side quests first with no sense of urgency regarding the main story.

In fact, the issue they most pressingly wanted to deal with was (and still is) Kressle. She even snuck into Oleg's one night while they were exploring and took his hand in fulfilment of her promise. Now the party is keen to acquire a scroll of regenerate.

I didn't like the idea of the Stag Lord sitting in his fort just waiting for them to decide they had time to show up and kill him, so I made him a little more proactive - culminating in this.

Grabbles on the other hand they killed, after which they immediately befriended the Sootscales, so that ran much closer to vanilla Kingmaker.


You might find some other things you like here, too. For RRR, check out Hargulka's Monster Kingdom and the Spring Feast.


Yeah, I've been planning to use the monster kingdom. I'll probably add in Carnival of Tears and Fellnight Queen too.

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