Background: The Lost Mine has been found. The forge of spells is being reopened, dwarves, merchants, wizards and miners are traveling into this once-quaint little village at an alarmingly rapid pace in search of steady work and the chance to earn their fortune. The Cragmaws, or what's left of them, are having the time of their lives; with so many targets, raids, thefts and lost caravans are becoming commonplace. Securing the trade routes along the Triboar Trail has been made a priority by the people of Phandalin.
Setup: Construction crews have been formed from commoners and miners from Phandalin; 10 men and one foreman who will travel a half-day (at normal foot speed) from Phandalin along the trail and build a guard house as a secure rest stop for traveling merchants. Over time, more of these secure stops will be built along the trail and the Phandalin Militia and Town Guards will be able to react with speed to marauding gobins or other other threats to the trade caravans. They will leave in the morning with a group of guards, a couple donkeys and a cart full of nails and tools needed to build the structure. A few hours before sunset, they will find a good spot for the guard post along the road, set up guards and camp for the night. In the morning, they will begin construction.
This will be a simple structure, not a fine manor house... just someplace to shelter from the weather and from marauders. The construction crew will start work after breakfast (around 7 AM) and should be completed several hours before sundown (done at 4, sundown at 7 PM).
Naturally, the Cragmaws are not going to sit by and let this happen. For every hour of work, roll a d20 on the following table:
1-10: All's Quiet
11-12: 1d6+1 Goblin Pyro-Klepto maniacs
13-14: 1 Goblin Worg-Herder, 1d3 Worgs
15-16: 1d6 Goblin Snipers
17-18: 1d4 Goblin Snake Charmers
19-20: 2 Goblin Woodcutters
~~Goblin Pyro-Klepto maniacs: Half these goblins sneak up close to the construction, then light their torches (each has two) and throw them in, then run away. After setting the building on fire as a distraction, the other half of the group attempts to steal the donkey and carts, along with all the nails and tools left on them. The fires are easily extinguished by anyone spending their action to do so, but losing the cart or donkeys doubles the time remaining on the construction.
~~Goblin Worg-Herder, 3 Worgs: One obviously terrified goblin comes running into the camp, spending every action and bonus action to run as fast as his little feet will carry him. He's being chased by 3 hungry worgs, who will chase after him until they spot someone meatier - and hopefully slower. The three worgs will attack a single target until it stops moving, then flee with the body back into the woods to eat. The goblin just wants to survive, not fight.
~~Goblin Snipers: 1d6 Goblins fire short bows from the cover of the woods at long range into the camp, hiding and moving after each shot. They have no heart for a fight, and will target the workers before any party members. Any attack directed at them will cause them to flee, whether it hits them or not. Every worker killed adds one hour to the construction time.
~~Goblin Snake Charmers: 1d4 Goblins throw a bag full of poisonous snakes into the middle of the construction efforts, then run away. Each bag contains 3 tiny poisonous vipers. Again, every worker killed adds one hour to the construction time.
~~Goblin Woodcutters: Two goblins set up a trap near the construction... They take 3 rounds to hack through a tree. If they do it without getting spotted, then they drop the tree on the next worker to pass by for 4d6 damage (dex save for half). If they are spotted and someone comes to attack, they will drop the tree on them and run away. If someone starts shooting arrows or spells at them, they hide behind the tree and wait for someone to get close, then push the tree at them.
If the crew doesn't complete the construction on the first day, then the construction crew will have to be convinced to stay the night and finish the second day; and the difficulty should be increased for every worker killed.
What level are the PCs? This sounds like post-LMoP, so 4th or 5th maybe? If so, I'm thinking maybe scale up the threats, but keep them focused on the works/buildings. I have some other ideas but wanted to get a feel for the level first.
I've got 4 players and this is one of the options for after the Lost Mine is complete; they will be 5th level. Wizard, Monk, Cleric and Fighter. I wanted the daytime threats to be annoying, not deadly (unless you happen to be a construction worker). If they don't get the place built by the end of the first night, though, and they convince the workers to stay, maybe I'll add a more deadly threat to attack during the night.
I love the idea behind this. It's a very logical progression to the mine re-opening. So you've laid out what happens on the monster side. How do the Heroes fit into all of this?
Presumably, they are supposed to thwart the attacks. How can they do that?
What things can the HEROES accomplish to thwart the invaders?
Can any of these be solved without combat? Without having to kill the invaders?
What if they captured a few invaders and held them hostage?
Can they be interrogated about future attacks?
How can they bolster morale among the construction crew?
Can their magic be used to speed up any of the construction?
Can the Strong Fighter and the Crafty Rogue help construction via Athletics or Sleight of Hand?
Who are the construction crew foremen? These are NPCs waiting to happen. Gruff dwarves with wide mustaches and big cigars. Go wild!
I think it would be fun to put the PCs in charge of a major effort to secure the Triboar Trail, assuming they have proven themselves equal to the task during the events of LMoP. To secure them, outposts must be built and manned ahead of a large-scale invasion - the last big hurrah of the Cragmaw horde. Galvanized under their new leader, the osyluth Agaphilus who was sent by the goblin deity Bargrivyek, the goblins organize and prepare for a final thrust to capture territory they have been pushed out of over the years. They rally in Neverwinter Wood. The PCs are made aware of this threat in some fashion.
I count 16 hexes from the High Road to the the eastern side of the map (past Conyberry). So I would set a goal of building one outpost per hex before the rising of the Blood Moon which is X days away. The PCs can rally N number of workers to set up an outpost, each outpost taking a number of man hours. Once an outpost is established, the hex is secured and goblins will avoid moving into or attacking anything in that hex. If all 16 outposts are established, the horde will be kept at bay and - if Agaphilus is taken out of the picture - the horde collapses in upon itself and disperses due to infighting. If 10 to 12 outposts are established before the Blood Moon, Phandalin is attacked and the PCs face a "Ludicrous" encounter (see Kobold Fight Club encounter builder), the result of which determines the fate of the town. If they establish 13-15 outposts, then this encounter is Deadly. If they fail to establish at least 10 outposts, then Phandalin is overrun and razed to the ground.
Now it's just a matter of setting the values for X and N such that there is a shortage that puts them at a result of 10-12 outposts before the Blood Moon (if they don't lose too many workers due to random encounters), then applying your random encounters (which I would set at Medium difficulty) during the construction time which potentially reduces N. I would also suggest adding complications to the random encounter chart (call it a "random event" chart) such as bad weather or shortages in supplies. It'll be up to the players to figure out a way to increase their supply of laborers, defend their efforts, and deal with any complications that might arise. Or perhaps they set out to cut the head off the snake before the horde fully reconstitutes itself. Any plan can work and I wouldn't worry too much about setting contingencies or planning solutions for your players as some might suggest.
Of course, this is all kind of fiddly resources management, so you'll only want to use this idea if your players are into that sort of thing. Naturally you'll also want to present it in a suitably epic way such that it's not all about the numbers, but about the difficulties and complications inherent in this task.
Thanks for your questions and comments - it's got me thinking. The Cragmaws have been depleted by the events of the LMoP campaign, and they aren't being led by a Bugbear only interested in what he can smash; now they are lead by a Hobgoblin who is much more shrewd about his plans and actions.
So he's got money and food from the raids. He's got Goblins (there are always more goblins around) for harassment, scouting and simple raids, but he needs real troops. For that, he's got a couple options...
The new basic-rules DMG has a werewolf entry - so he could make a deal with a group of werewolves that hunted in the Neverwinter Woods. Goblins that prove worthy and some of his own Hobgoblin mates could voluntarily become infected... They join the werewolf clan, and over time, plan to spread the disease into Phandalin. Not sure how harassing the construction crew would help.... but it's a possibility.
He could make a deal with some ogres or with the orcs from the Many-Arrows tribe. They will both work for gold. They would not want the guard posts finished, because it would make the Phandalin forces too mobile and make every raid into more fight and less robbery/slaughter. So the goblins harass the construction crew and send word back to the Cragmaw's camp. Ogres and/or orcs are dispatched to wreck the guardpost, but they won't arrive until dusk. The goblin raids aren't meant to destroy the building - they are meant to keep the building from being finished and to tap the resources of the group, so that when the real warriors arrive, the battle will be a slaughter.
So, if the players catch one of the goblins and interrogate him and find out what's coming, then the wizard and Cleric could get in a long rest before the fight. They could arm the construction crew with simple bows, or even crossbows... if they can get word back to town and summon reinforcements... it's too far for any help to get there and back before the fight, but if one of them can use long-range communication, they could get help.
Or I could combine the plots... Maybe the Hobgoblin made a deal with werewolves. The Cragmaws step up the raids and the general havok of the area while the werewolves go to the town and present themselves as a mercenary group; offering to act as guards against the raiders. The hobgoblin sends some mercenaries from the Many-Arrows tribe out for the Werewolves to kill (you don't have to pay a dead mercenary) and the werewolves become the heroes of the town - freely able to infect travelers and able-bodied citizens at will. So the harassment and night-time attack is just a show; Once any threats are killed by the Many-Arrows mercenaries, along comes some werewolves to "save" the construction crew.
hmmmm... I'm starting to like this plotting Hobgoblin. He needs a name, though...
****Edit - Holy crap, I posted this before reading Iserith's idea... that sounds like a lot of fun! This is why I posted the idea to the forum in the first place!
Excellent. Thanks a million; I'll start pushing some numbers around and see what it looks like.
Okay - minor complication. "Secure the Triboar Trail" and "Defend from the Cragmaw Horde" aren't easily matched up. The Cragmaw are coming from the forest to the north, so guardposts along the trail to the east and west aren't going to do much.
What about rather than guard posts and a day's construction, we make it a larger project - a fortified millitary camp being built to defend from the horde at the crossroad between Phandalin and the Triboar trail. Goblin harassment slowing them down and picking off workers slows the project. They can do progessively higher DC charisma checks to get workers from town; but once they start dying, they will have to make charisma checks to keep the workers from abandoning the project.
I can use the above for daytime encounters, and send in some more serious threats at night - undead or Hobgoblin raiders.
They can assign workers to different projects and make charisma checks to get more workers from town... These guys are pretty creative, so if I give them a week for construction, I'm sure they will come up with some good stuff. I'll lower the difficulty of the eventual fight based on how many persuasion checks and good ideas for traps and such they can come up with.
Once the Horde is done, they can secure the rest of the trail.
I see "Secure the Triboar Trail" and "Defend against the Cragmaw Horde" as one in the same. A string of outposts along the trail east to west means the horde won't cross south of the trail to mess with operations in Phandalin or Wave Echo Cave. With garrisoned outposts every five miles, there is a quick, organized response to raids. If the PCs can top that off by taking the fight to Agaphilus, the Cragmaw are done forever. Alternatively, replace Cragmaw with Many Arrows orcs and make their commander a wight or something cool like that (if you're tired of goblins as antagonists). Perhaps they are streaming out of Wyvern Tor and staging in Neverwinter Wood. How well the PCs do managing their workers and quelling threats and complications on the countdown to the Blood Moon determines the outcome.
Minor encounters that come up in a particular hex threaten the workers, so without PC support, they lose workers there which means it takes longer to create new outposts (remember they need at least 10). Augment this with supply shortages, worker strikes, or worker shortages that the PCs can choose to deal with by traveling to other towns or rallying additional support from the locals. (Don't get too hung up on how they solve problems or how you will adjudicate them e.g. "make Charisma checks" because you don't know if what they suggest will succeed, fail, or will have an uncertain outcome until the moment they say what they are going to do.)
So management of this will be easy from the DM side of the fence: You have a calendar of days from Now till Blood Moon. You can set some specific events to take place during that time. For every outpost that is under construction on a given day, you roll on your random event table and see what it says. Whatever complications arise (if any), you tell the players and ask them what they do, adjudicating accordingly. Repeat for each day. Their goal is to get 10 to 16 outposts built before time is up.
For example, they got 24 workers at the outset. It takes 8 workers two days to build an outpost (call it 192 man hours). The players decide to put outposts up in three hexes, to be completed in two days. On Day 1, you roll for each hex. The eastern and western hex have no issues, but the one between them has a shortage of materials, say, wood which stops construction. Ask the PCs how they deal with this and adjudicate accordingly. Let's say they successfully do that, so on Day Two you roll again. The center outpost continues being built, but the eastern and western outposts are under attack! How do they deal with this before they start losing workers? And so on. (Just figure out the fair number of workers, man hours required, and days till time's up. It should come out to 10 to 12 outposts complete if they do an okay job. If they don't deal well with management or dealing with threats, then they might do worse. If they are on their game, they might do better.)
And if the players have joined any factions, they can always ask for favors from the faction - which of course puts them on the hook for doing something in return down the road!
Okay... I like it.
d4 roll:
1-2: No problems
3: Under Attack!
4: Construction Issue
Construction issues:
d4 roll
1: inclement weather - delays construction 1 day
2: materials/lumber shortage - delays construction 1 day
3: Half the construction crew falls sick. Get medicine / healing out there or the site will fall behind a day
4: Crew was assisted by a passing merchant caravan - Construction finished ahead of schedule (or crew moved out to start next site if they only had one day left)
Under Attack!
d4
1: Trivial Goblin nuisance - crew can handle
2: Orc Raid - Crew can handle, but 2 workers were killed. Need to bring out some extra help.
3: Dangerous Animal Attack - Crew won't return to work until it's driven off
4: Hobgoblin Slavers - Crew has been captured. Rescue them or send a new crew
That's the basic idea. You can expand on the chart and get a bit fancier with it if you like. For example, make it a d20 roll with a modifier based on the day (d20+1 for Day 1, d20+2 for Day 2 and so on). Then put attacks on the higher end of the chart and "Uneventful" on the lower end of the chart. This will have the effect of increasing the chances of attacks the closer you get to the Blood Moon.
Something like:
- 2 - 6. Uneventful.
- 7 - 11. Potential Construction Delays.
- 12 - 16. Easy Attacks.
- 17 - 21. Medium Attacks.
- 22+ Hard Attacks.
"Easy," "Medium," and "Hard" refer to the difficulty of encounters. For four 5th-level PCs, an Easy encounter might be 6 goblins and a warg. A Medium encounter could be a 3 hobgoblins and a hobgoblin captain. A Hard encounter is perhaps 3 bugbears and 6 hobgoblins. You could just put a result like each of these on the chart for a single roll value. Use that encounter builder I provided above to quickly populate the chart with cool stuff. If you want to have more interaction and exploration and less combat, increase the range at which the PCs will have Potential Construction Delays. Come Day Six, there are no results of "Uneventful" possible as you can see (minimum roll is 7). Things will be hectic as the Blood Moon approaches!
The important thing to remember here is that the players must be given a chance to solve these problems. You can't just roll on a chart and tell them things are delayed or that they lost workers. That's just meaningless random rolls. You want to offer them an opportunity to make meaningful decisions by presenting them with situations and problems they have a chance of solving. Tools like the chart just help you create those situations on the fly during play.
For example, if you have 10 options put the worst options with low numbers and the favorable options on high numbers. You're gonna roll a d10 to see what happens. But if they take steps to mitigate dangers, add labor or capital, etc, then they get bonuses on the roll.
Now their decisions and investments pay off toward the potential outcomes.
Right... the problem I had coming up with the attacks is that an attack generally happens & ends. If 4 hobgoblins find the construction crew, they are as good as captured or killed - assuming the party isn't already on site. That's why the Goblin and Orc options under attack... well, if it happens and the party is 5 miles away; they are on their own. Animals can be thwarted by a closed door or fence and slavers can be a rescue mission, but I couldn't come up with any way to move the party 5 miles in the time it would take for a few bugbears to smash a door and start eating people. If you have any suggestions... maybe put some guards with the workers? Or maybe a scroll of "Rope Trick"... if they are attacked, the crew is to release a animal messenger and hide in the extradimensional space until help arrives?
That would give the party an hour to get where they need to be to help with an attack - give them a couple fast horses and they can make it quite a ways - provided they don't try to build too many at a time.
Seems kind of iffy, though. I like the idea that the party can protect one site themselves and if they want to start construction at a second site, they can... with a certain amount of risk.
I think I'll test roll it a couple times tonight and see how things turn out. I was also thinking of letting the party build up to 16. I'll draw out the map and let them pick where they are going to build and camp to cover the workers... then when the horde comes, roll randomly for where they cross the Triboar - if it's near a guard post, then the party gets a surprise round and ambush - knocking the difficulty down to Deadly instead of Ludicrous.
Yeah, another way of putting is that the results of the chart should be "soft moves," that is, an event that follows logically from the fiction, gives the players an opportunity to react, and sets up for a future "harder" move. The "hard move" follows logically from the fiction and is irrevocable.
So the "soft move" is that bugbears and hobgoblins have been sighted around the construction site for Outpost 3 - "what do you do about that?" If they do nothing (because they won't or can't), then the "hard move" is that the workers at the site are killed (or portion of workers who couldn't escape). If you just hit the players with the hard move, they have no opportunity to make meaningful decisions which is where game play lives.
SterlingRat wrote:
Thanks so much for your help, guys. I have a feeling this is going to go really well - my players are fairly creative and I have a feeling they will throw some things at me I can't forsee, but this is going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to give them 14 days to build 16 guard houses - they will have to gamble a couple times (at least) to get that done. I also want to keep the idea that incoming merchants would help with the construction efforts if their timetable allows it and they get a bit of gold - not all luck is bad luck. I want the last day to *definitely* be an attack;
•2 - 6. Uneventful.
•7 - 14. Construction Issue.
•15 - 18. Easy Attacks.
•19 - 23. Medium Attacks.
•24+ Hard Attacks.
Construction issues:
d4 roll
1: Inclement weather
2: Materials/lumber shortage
3: Half the construction crew falls sick
4: Crew ran into a passing merchant caravan - they could help for a bit of payment.
Attack (this is just who is attacking - the number of attackers will be determined by the difficulty)
d6 roll
1: Goblins & Wolves - Cragmaw
2: Hobgoblins - Cragmaw
3: Bugbears - Cragmaw
4: Wild Animal
5: Human Slavers
6: False Alarm (if they are getting warning and time to react to an attack, it's only fair that it might be a false alarm. I'll probably reroll any 6's in the last couple days)
Cool. I'm working on typing up an example round right now and will post it shortly.
Example of Play just to think it through:
Let's set the values as 7 days of labor available before the Blood Moon. Each tower takes 192 man hours to construct. The PCs initially have 24 workers who commit 12 man-hours of labor per day (for a total of 288 man-hours per day) to manage on the building projects. This means that if they suffer no setbacks, they can build 10 towers in just under 7 days. A result of 10 towers built means there is a Ludicrous encounter at Phandalin on the Blood Moon, so they can shoot for that goal or they can try and do better to knock that down to Deadly or go for total completion. (Somebody check my math. I'm not a math guy.)
The town of Phandalin pays for the basic supplies (nothing extra to cover setbacks) and offer the PCs, call it, 2000 gp to manage this operation. Labor (workers, mercenaries, etc.) come out of their end. Workers cost 2 gp per day. A squad of mercs costs 16 gp per day and they can fend off an Easy encounter. A company of mercs costs 64 gp per day and they can fend off a Medium encounter. Only PCs can defeat a Hard encounter, but any group of mercs can buy time for the PCs to get there provided they are a reasonable distance away.
On Day One, the players decide they want to start construction on three outposts (shown on the map), splitting their workers among them equally. They set themselves up at Outpost 2 and hire 3 additional unskilled workers as messengers for 2 sp per day each. After some description and interaction with the workers, now we roll on the table for each of the three outposts (1d20+1) getting the result of 12, 15, and 6. (I'm using the chart above.) This means an Easy attack at Outposts 1 and 2. Outpost 3 is all clear.
"As you notice a small group of goblin skirmishers moving from a low hill to a copse of trees nearby, a runner approaches the site. 'Sirs and Ladies!' he says, dismounting from his horse. 'Goblins have been seen skulking about the work site to the west... we think they mean to attack!' What do you do?"
So now after having already made meaningful decisions as to how to build, hire, and place themselves, now they have to figure out how to be in two places at once to defend their workers. After assessing the relative strength of each attacking force, they decide that they'll split the party and send the wizard and battle cleric to Outpost 1 while the fighter and rogue defend Outpost 2. The DM determines that it is uncertain whether or not the wizard and cleric will make it to Outpost 1 in time, so he calls for a group DC 10 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check based on how the players say they're driving their horses as fast as they can go. If they make it, they'll get there before the attack. If they fail, they'll get there after having lost two workers to goblin arrows can try to defend the rest. The scenes in each outpost play out as normal with goblins going for workers as the primary target (as that is what Agaphilus has commanded).
When the dust settles, let's say no workers were lost and now three outposts are half completed. Realizing they got off lucky on Day One with two Easy encounters they decide to send the cleric to Phandalin to hire mercenaries so they can defend more easily. They hire a squad of mercs for 16 gp per day and have them defend Outpost 3 while the PCs regroup at Outpost 1. On Day Two, we roll again (1d20+2): 20, 10, 14. Oh boy.
"Two runners arrive with news of a shortage of wood at Outpost 2 which threatens to halt construction entirely and of an attack at Outpost 3 that the mercenaries were able to repell. If it had been a larger force, the mercenaries would have been overrun. Meanwhile, an organized force of hobgoblins has turned up at your location and they are lighting arrows on fire to loose upon the outpost. What do you do?"
And so on...
SterlingRat wrote:
Damn... as happens so often, my PCs decided to go follow another trail. I'm going to have to put a little more juice in the Bad Guys when I run this.... they will have 4 players @ Level 6 (maybe 7) when we got to this.
Thank goodness for KFC
If you haven't already, read through a copy of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting. Granted everybody in it is statted out for 4e and the information is about a generation old, but you can always snitch the cool ideas and re-fluff them. Lord Neverember (or his heir) would probably be interested in a working forge and mine, as yet another tributary to the Waterdeep commercial empire. He might even take care of the "recruit more carpenters" stuff for you.
SterlingRat wrote:
Well... "The best laid plans..." and other cliche's.
So they didn't get back to Phandalin until Level 7; I decided to beef up the bad guys a bit and made them only about 50 fighters strong, but werewolves.
They started out building outposts, but after 4 outposts, they went in another direction. They seemed to want a little intrigue and suspicion.... so they started searching through town for werewolves spying on the townsfolk. Then they sent their own spy out to the Cragmaws (A goblin they had some history with) and altered the plan.... rather than the whole horde taking on Phandalin, half came to Phandalin and half went out to the wave echo caves. Rather than meeting the horde outside of town, they booby-trapped the town and hid the common folk in the Redbrand's old hideout and the Manor House.
Anyway... it was still fun. They got to root out the werewolf spy (which I had to create on the fly.... I really should have thought about that beforehand. Live and Learn).
Then they hired some mercs and organize defenses and trained some militia. It was like The Three Amigos, but furrier.