Ideas on Raising Armies

I'm having a little trouble organizing thoughts, so i thought i would ask the interwebs. A little Background, Dragonborn have invaded the desert cities, and after making a stronghold, the PC's have decided to go to a free city, to raise an army to fight them back. It will take them five games to get them to their next level, so I'd like it to take five games to raise the army. So there would be five different types of military resources they will need to acquire. Firstly, a large standing army. A large group of about a thousand soldiers to match the numbers of the dragonborn. Secondly, Shock Troops. Strong troops that can tear holes in enemy lines. Thirdly, Artillery. Anything that can burst holes into walls and keep the dragons down from a distance. Fourth, Large sums of military equipment. Improved armor and weapons that will drastically increase the standing army's odds. Lastly, a Shadow Team. This team of five will take the route that the PC's do not, taking out the walls or opening the front door through the sewer entrance. ------------------------------- I want my players to have choice on what they go after, so i'm looking to you guys to give me some ideas that I may have overlooked. I'd like at least three ideas for each, and i'd like to give them the best options possible. So far i have a few ideas on each. Artillery could be something standard, like catapults. Or something cool like Mages raining down meteors. I also appreciate the idea of having Wyverns drop bombs. For large standing army, I like the idea of buying out the city's slaves (although my lawful good PC's might not like that idea), or having a necromancer raise large sums of undead (again, lawful good might detest.) Couldn't think of a third... Shock troops could involve Knights Calvary, or possibly giants and trolls. Couldn't think of a third. For Military equipment, i was thinking that they could raid the abandoned storehouses of the under-city that this city was built upon. I couldn't think of anything else... For the shadow team, I thought the players could get themselves purposely sell themselves to the owners of Slavers who put their slaves into the area. Eventually someone would create a rival team to beat them. The PC's would then make their escape with the new team. I couldn't think of any more. ---------------------------- So please give me some ideas. I'd really like to give my players alot of cool options when building their army. Thanks.

It depends a lot on your world's theme; I'm guessing from the description that you are using 4e in a standard high fantasy world. If your world has black powder or similar, your artillery could be cannons, rockets (think ancient China), or just barrels of black powder rolled in and ignited. For the main army, you didn't mention the possibility of just recruiting from the city, but that might be a bit slow. If you have a druidic faction you could summon an army of animals; that could be interesting, but it might also get complicated depending on how far you take it. Shock troops are where I would use summoning spells; I can see huge golems and elementals doing well here. Another option would be normal soldiers under an Enlarge spell. If I were running this, I would definitely use the equipment as a way to send the party on a dungeon crawl. Obviously, your standard crypt wouldn't have loads of weaponry, but a mysteriously abandoned castle might. Or you could have them do a favor for a nearby warlord. I'm not quite sure what you meant with the slave team idea. If I were trying to recruit a shadow team, I might try to make contact with the local thieves' guild. They could also go on a quest to find a group of legendary shadow warriors whose hideout location is unknown. ---------- I am curious to know how your players will control the army. I've seen and done similar things, and nothing seems to really work. The first time we tried it, each player led a particular group of troops, and the player's attack represented the group's success. We've also used more elaborate methods, like a player running two or three groups of soldiers on each turn. What were you thinking of doing?

All good ideas, No gunpowder in my universe, but explosives are always sweet to throw. Gathering weapons is definitely going to be a dungeon crawl. Either going to an abandoned castle, or going to some forgotten palace to retrieve a giant diamond to sell to buy all the supplies needed. The Shadow team isn't a stealth team, its a "shadow' version of the current team. Another group of heroes that can do the same jobs the PC's can. Using Enlarge person and summoning elementals and monsters is genius, I'm definitely going to give them those as options. My plan: There's going to be two phases of the war, the first is in open field (a single game), and then taking over the city (5 games, one for each district). My players like to get in the thick of it, so in the first phase, they'll be fighting on the front lines, in a series of (most likely three or four) battles against oncoming enemies, without any breaks or rests in between. Starting with Dragonkin, moving up to Dragonborn, and ending with a real Dragon Boss/General. It will be important to make each battle different, so they don't get bored. If you have ideas of skill challenges that could be done in the middle of big battle, I would appreciate it. I plan on making the battles very difficult, and give the team a few daily powers to reflect their command and give the fight a little of dazzle This would include: targeting their enemies with the artillery, Allowing the shadow team to replace them (So that they may rest for five minutes and regain powers), allowing the strike team to tear a line through the enemies. Of course, ideas and suggestions are always welcome.

When I ran my first 4e campaign I tried to make use of skill challenges. That's when I realized that they are, in large part, bogus; counting successes and failures is merely a mechanism to prolong the attempt and manipulate the odds of failure. Any action that /requires/ skill checks should fit naturally into a scene. That aside, here are a few things that could be fun to try. When I do stuff like this, I try to design them such that success will give an advantage but failure will not halt the action. 1) Have part of the battle play out either beside a cliff with lots of loose rock or a wall with precariously placed heavy crates. Add an obvious way to bring them crashing down on the enemies. Related checks: Climb, Spot, Strength (for pushing things over), Knowledge (Tactics) (for getting the enemies in position), Stealth. 2) Put a fight near a large stack of explosives and start a convenient fire nearby. If the players don't put it out in a certain number of turns it explodes, harming both the good guys and bad guys (which might be acceptable to high-hp characters). So they have to choose to either maneuver the enemies into the blast, retreat away from it, or take it and let the enemies also take it. Related checks: Knowledge (Tactics), Bluff, Spot (to find cover), Intelligence (to figure out when the explosion will occur). 3) Somewhere in the city the players notice that the enemy is about to [open the dam and flood part of the city / send part of the city up in flames / kill a group of hostages]. They have to fight, sneak, climb, crawl, etc their way over to stop it. Checks (somewhat obviously): Sneak, Climb, Spot, Acrobatics, Athletics (for swinging/jumping across rooftops and other obstacles). I still don't entirely understand the shadow team. Is it a duplicate of the party? If that's the case, they could spend a pre-war adventure questing to find the ritual necessary to temporarily clone themselves. Or they could find a mage capable of animating golems with similar capabilities.

The shadow team aren't actually clones, just another group of adventurers that can do the same things the heroes can. If you played Mass Effect 2, it would be similar to designating who leads the second team when assaulting the final base. I actually find Skill Challenges to be super awesome. I never make it so that it halts the action, but I do make victory beneficial. Either with more information, some sweet loot, or NPC help. I actually made one where the players needed to sneak into a town, then blend in, then gather information on what had been going on. If they succeed, they learn what's going on and that they should talk to the king, if they fail, they are brought to the king by force. (They succeeded, btw) Then they do a Diplomacy skill challenge to talk to the king. They failed when one insulted the king and another tried to intimidate him. A success would mean he tries to help them (with sweet magic items), a failure meant they are sent to the stocks. Once they got to the stocks, one of the characters found that his brother was there too. They used their skills to escape and save his brother's life. If they failed, the brother would have ran off to distract the guards (and die by them) while the PCs escaped . They were pretty happy when they succeeded.

I should clarify: it isn't the idea of a skill challenge that I don't like. It's the 4e mechanic that doesn't work for me. Here's a possibility for the shadow team: The players could attempt to choose the most capable of their volunteers with tryouts, a contest of combat skill, or the like. Depending on how well they do in judging, the shadow team members could have higher or lower attack bonuses than the real PCs.