D&D 5E Help with a Raid

GreyBeardDM · Friday at 5:06 PM

Looking for some help with a raid

Location:
Single story Palace on a hill, around it at the base are troops loyal to the queen
Secret entrance in the bathhouse that leads of a location beyond the camped guards.

Quests:
Retrieve a sword from a statue
Get rid of the queen

PCs have got some rebel forces to assist them.

I have originally thought I could keep the rebels fighting off screen, and then the PCs would be the strike team, but alas no.

I am trying to put together a session around this, the PCs have suggested they just send all of the rebels into the palace to get them to subdue the queen, then swoop in for the rewards.

so questions

any guidance on how to make this raid better?
is it wrong for the rebels being spotted queuing up for the secret entrance?
any modules that I could utilise for this?

any thoughts, comments would be greatly appreciated

Quickleaf · Friday at 5:33 PM

I'm going to focus on what I consider your most pressing issue: The players want to solve this remotely: "We send in the redshirts and let them sort it out."

If this were B/X there'd be a % roll for conducting a siege with a bunch of modifier tables (Rules Cyclopedia). If this were Chainmail/OD&D the GM might play it out with wargaming rules.

So you need to articulate what YOU want: Do you want the players to solve this via their NPCs? This might make sense if the players had to do a lot of footwork to secure these NPCs as allies, and this just the natural evolution/payoff of that past adventure.

Or do you want them to have to get their own hands dirty solving this? I am assuming this is what you want - something more adventuresome.

What you're looking for is (a) clarity of your intent/vision, and (b) a narrative & mechanical approach that supports that.

I'll give an example approach that plays along with what I think your players are intending: While the rebels engage the Queen's forces, the PCs use that as a distraction to infiltrate the palace without drawing attention to themselves, get to the sword statue, retrieve the sword, and then get out undetected. So what you might actually have is a HEIST with a mass combat backdrop. Thus things like Alertness Levels of the guards, having to create decoys or extinguish lights to sneak by, devising strategies to survive hail of arrow fire when crossing courtyard, decisions of how/whether to redeploy rebels to help the PCs but at high losses to the rebels, etc. Depending on how zoomed in you wish to get, you can design each Palace Area just with a mass combat event overlay and let the PCs loose, or you can abstract the infiltration with a skill challenge approach. You can spice it up with (a) unexpected defenses, (b) dramatic shifts in strategy, (c) walls coming down as hazards & opening up new connections between rooms/baileys, and in true HEIST fashion (d) the planned escape route getting compromised and the party having to improvise a new extraction.

Edit: Last observation - there are two goals: get sword & kill queen. This can lead to tension if the PCs end up having to make choices in their HEIST for the sword that reduce chances of rebels killing the queen, or vice versa.

Reynard · Friday at 5:45 PM

Specifically about the back door: The way to make this interesting is for the party to unexpectedly discover some servants cleaning/maintaining the bathhouse and the PCs having to decide what to do about it. Maybe the servants were in the midst of a bath of their own, the kind of crime that could get them beaten or worse. The party could use that as a way to convince them not to tattle. Or the PCs might decide to take them captive. Do the servants love their queen, or hate her? The point is to make it a interaction and a moral question. And, if the PCs do something untoward or foolish, the consequence is betting caught trying to sneak a small army into the palace.

GreyBeardDM · Friday at 5:55 PM

Quickleaf said:
I'm going to focus on what I consider your most pressing issue: The players want to solve this remotely: "We send in the redshirts and let them sort it out."

If this were B/X there'd be a % roll for conducting a siege with a bunch of modifier tables (Rules Cyclopedia). If this were Chainmail/OD&D the GM might play it out with wargaming rules.

So you need to articulate what YOU want: Do you want the players to solve this via their NPCs? This might make sense if the players had to do a lot of footwork to secure these NPCs as allies, and this just the natural evolution/payoff of that past adventure.

Or do you want them to have to get their own hands dirty solving this? I am assuming this is what you want - something more adventuresome.

What you're looking for is (a) clarity of your intent/vision, and (b) a narrative & mechanical approach that supports that.

I'll give an example approach that plays along with what I think your players are intending: While the rebels engage the Queen's forces, the PCs use that as a distraction to infiltrate the palace without drawing attention to themselves, get to the sword statue, retrieve the sword, and then get out undetected. So what you might actually have is a HEIST with a mass combat backdrop. Thus things like Alertness Levels of the guards, having to create decoys or extinguish lights to sneak by, devising strategies to survive hail of arrow fire when crossing courtyard, decisions of how/whether to redeploy rebels to help the PCs but at high losses to the rebels, etc. Depending on how zoomed in you wish to get, you can design each Palace Area just with a mass combat event overlay and let the PCs loose, or you can abstract the infiltration with a skill challenge approach. You can spice it up with (a) unexpected defenses, (b) dramatic shifts in strategy, (c) walls coming down as hazards & opening up new connections between rooms/baileys, and in true HEIST fashion (d) the planned escape route getting compromised and the party having to improvise a new extraction.

Edit: Last observation - there are two goals: get sword & kill queen. This can lead to tension if the PCs end up having to make choices in their HEIST for the sword that reduce chances of rebels killing the queen, or vice versa.

I would prefer the PCs to do the dirty work with the queen, and get in close. Using the red shirts just seems not very adventure like and certainly not what they have done previously in this campaign

Quickleaf · Friday at 6:00 PM

GreyBeardDM said:
I would prefer the PCs to do the dirty work with the queen, and get in close. Using the red shirts just seems not very adventure like and certainly not what they have done previously in this campaign

If it were me, I’d be looking for non-binary implementations. IOW “yes, but” the heck out of them wanting to use redshirts to get the queen.

Maybe the degree of success of rebels determines…
# in queens’s vanguard
HP of queen and/or vanguard
State of queen/vanguard (ie. reacting emotionally or desperately can lead to strategic mistakes)
Whether PCs get to surprise the queen
Etc.

D&D 5E Help with a Raid

GreyBeardDM

Explorer

Quickleaf

Legend

Reynard

Legend

GreyBeardDM

Explorer

Quickleaf

Legend

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