Seige advice

[Vipersfang]

In my campaign its leading to a huge fight with the PC's in a castle. I need advice how to run a seige in a castle environment. I want it to run over a few adventures. Each last 4 hours.

[Perpdepog]

What sorts of things do you want to have happen during the seige? Are you mostly looking at the PCs standing on the walls, fighting off enemies, or do you want it to be more tactical and logistical, with the party having a hand in which positions get fortified?

For the latter I'd suggest checking out the Victory Point subsystem. I believe Jason Bulmahn used a varient of this system in his Knights of the Everflame campaign. There is also a version of this subsystem in "March of the Dead," the adventure in the back of Book of the Dead.

[YuriP]

For Siege Battles:
If you have a battle map of your castle you can also do a big encounter using your castle.

To avoid waste much time in this battles I recommend the usage of troops. You can also use Siege Weapons for each side. Also ropes and specially Climbing Kit can be used to climb walls (unfortunately the game don't have clear rules to use siege ladders so I use a simple Untrained DC (CD 10) but I also add the risk of these ladders being easily shoved without tests (yet I require an attack action to do it)). The chars can also climbs the castle wall with their bare hands but this is a Master DC (CD 30) so it isn't an easily task. Unfortunately the game also don't have siege towers but you can treat them as mobile Wooden Structures that may help a lot the invaders side once they don't require climb jut some move actions for creatures that aren't already in the towers to get into it.

These same material rules are useful specially for Siege Weapons to attack the castle walls and doors.

And of course we also have magic! Flying creatures and spells, specially long range area spells like Chain Lightning and Horrid Wilting are brutal under siege battles. Even some less used spells like Gravitational Pull, Gravity Well, Variable Gravity and Reverse Gravity becomes very useful when you have to pass over or defend a castle wall with/againts a large group or an army.
Also some ancestries may home some advantages like fly/climb/burrow speed to help the attackers side.

For long sieges:
This can become some kind of downtime battle. One of mostly used strategies during a siege is try to make those there are inside a castle to starve, to loose moral or to force them to do ground attacks or even surrender.

This kind of siege may use Victory Point subsystem like suggested by Perpdepog or you can use the other systems like Earn Income table to calc the both sides costs to maintain their armies and Subsistence cost to rationing food. A series of Diplomacy, Intimidation, Deception to diminish the army costs, avoid insurrections and Survival checks to diminish food and water consumption.

Again magic can helps here too. Create Food and Create Water spell may help to maintain both side in a siege. Magnificent Mansion and Resplendent Mansion can maintain not only the armies fed but also keeps the moral high protecting the soldiers against environment.
Here again some ancestries may home some advantages like Undead Hunger for skeletons or automatons that don't need to eat or drink or leshys that usually only needs water.

[Ravingdork]

How many of you read "Sage Advice?" XD

[YuriP]

Kkkkk I only notice this now after you Ravingdork

[Vipersfang]

Thanks. It's gave me a lot to mull over...

[markrivett]

For things like this I like to give the players lots of agency. I ran a “city revolt” adventure with the players on the side of the rebels not long ago.

I gave the players a list of “suggested” things they could do to prepare (but also encouraged them to invent their own things they wanted to do). The entire first half of the session was them figuring out what they wanted to do.

For example, one player with a very high craft skill wanted to build some siege weapons in secret. This meant he had to acquire materials, find a secret location to work, get people he trusted with the skills to help him, and then secretly move the siege weapons into position.

Another player (a druid) spent his time telling all the small animals in the area to gather seeds. He then scattered the seeds around the area and used the Plant Growth ritual to grow food inside the perimeter and thorny brambles on the outside.

Another player, with a very high intimidation, spent her time preaching in the streets. She intended to persuade more common folk to join their cause. But also wanted to talk about how strong her side was in order to discourage enemy troops from fighting.

Much of the fun of something like this will be in seeing how their preparation influences the narrative.

For a siege (I assume the players are the defenders?), there are a lot of things players can do to give themselves and the other defenders an advantage. Siege weapons and fortifications are important, but what about establishing information networks needed to communicate conditions to potential allies on the outside? Triage/medical tents for the injured? Traps? Food and weapon stockpiling?

Maybe the person in charge (if not the players) has made a mistake with his force allocation and the players need to persuade him/her to reallocate. Or maybe the players see an opportunity to exploit a weakness and need to inspire some soldiers to assist them. Or, maybe there’s a dormant escape portal in the dungeon beneath the castle and the players need to research until they find the Awaken Portal ritual and perform it.

I think each sessions should be equal parts combat and skill-based non-combat.