So the gang is getting back together after a while (last game was before summer)Yay!
And like any GM worth his salt, I of course, don't have any proper notes and my memory is shoddy :)
Oh yeah Btw: DARKER DAYS PLAYERS PLEASE DON'T READ THIS.
there, now they won't know what hit them.
Last times our great(...?) heroes were adventureing they decided to amush a youngling dragon ( it was more like an execution)
and carry the corpse home for mounting and bragging rights ...
it's parent took offence and ambushed them on the way back to town,
glorious/hilarious battle ensued and the end result was that the dragon escaped ... and at least 1 player died
(it's ok, they know a druid in the woods, he'll fix him up ... )
So now they've pissed that dragon off ...
They have also (like players often do) ignored completely the fact that there have been (several) signs of giants coming down from the mountains.
Or the fact that they have aquired an amulet that the giants are looking for. (completely clueless, despite my careful hints)
So here is what I'm going to do: the dragon will contact the giants, manipulate/make a deal with them
(this is ridiculous easy since the players have kinda set themselves up by previous actions),
and point them in the players direction - it will then leave, because that magus left some scorch marks and it needs some "me-time".
the result of this is that next session starts with the giant attacking the village the players have set as base.
the village have no walls or fortifications except the natural:
it is a triangle shape - made by a river splitting in two and the 2 new offshoots "cage" the village.
the bottom of the triangle is made by a natural cliff along that side. at the smallest the river is maybe 2meters wide and have 2 bridges ...
so even without bridges the giants can cross fairly easy.
it's major buildings are: an old inn, a guardhouse, and a abadoned church ... so - pretty much nothing that can survive a siege.
for the record, the pcs are all lvl 11:
a human magus (eldritch scion) katana-wielding spellcaster/"attack helicopter" dpr-focused and tanky
a hobgoblin (unchained) Rogue (knifemaster) 2-weapon fighter, dpr-whore and quite tough
a human bard (archivist) mostly a pure buffer/utility caster and face
an elven ranger, switch-hitter likes tripping, he's also Large sized (it's along story)
Still with me? good, ok here's the questions: How would you do such a siege?
one big battle with ludicrus amounts of giant just swarming the players ?
or in waves of increasing numbers and power? (it's a trope for a reason)
would you have lulls in the battle to allow players to rest and explore options? (like bringing the fight to the giants or negotiating or outright leaving) or would you just keep pounding them untill you run out of giants?
other questions is consequences: what natural enemies have the giants kept in check up there in the cold mountains that might come down and mess with the players at a later point in the campaign?
Is there anything obvious I've missed or anything that would be cool to throw into this mix? I'm open for suggestions
I'd have the leader of the giants be wary. He knows the PCs are strong enough to upset a dragon. So he sends his most expendable giants in first, tells them to throw rocks at the village and see what happens. He hangs back, surrounded by his toughest bodyguards, watching from a good vantage point. That way, it's not just one big battle with everyone attacking at once.
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If the dragon learned about the amulet, I would have it mislead the giants into believing that the PCs leave it hidden in the village when they go adventuring.
Then the giants wait for the PCs to leave the village (or even engineer a distraction), kill/torture everyone and destroy everything looking for the amulet while the PCs are not there. They might want to take some hostages to barter with the PCs for the amulet when they realize it is not in the village.
The dragon witnesses all from a safe distance and is quite happy with its revenge of hitting the PCs where it hurts (loved ones, base of operations).
The giants realize they have been tricked by the dragon into attacking the PCs' village, which might end up in them allying or giving info to the PCs so that they all can get some revenge on that double-dealing dragon.
I'd have the leader of the giants be wary. He knows the PCs are strong enough to upset a dragon. So he sends his most expendable giants in first, tells them to throw rocks at the village and see what happens. He hangs back, surrounded by his toughest bodyguards, watching from a good vantage point. That way, it's not just one big battle with everyone attacking at once.
nice, I think that's a good start, I have the Monster Codex (g'damn that's a fun book for Gm's!) so I have many different variants and levels of frost giant to throw at them.
The Raven Black: while the idea is nice it kinda defeats the purpose of the big battle I want to stage, also .... there is the players.
Knowing my group, I think there is a probability of them just moving on with other plots if I massacred the whole town while they were away - at least one of them would first sift through the rubble for loot first.
Having reached lvl 11 and being a varied bunch there is a little bit of cynical thinking in pc's, and some of that is they know that if something is dangerous enough to do X to Y, it could potentially do X to them as well. And I can be a mean GM at times if their reach exceeds their grasp.
As a side note; because of Real Life Stuff(tm) we're only playing once per month, so our sessions will tend towords the larger events and more epic moments in the story.