After the game, after a glass of wine, approaching midnight. To blog or not bargh?
How do I run a war of attrition of the party vs some orcs? This is what I had:
**0902**: It’s colder up here and the *Thorny Vine Wood* is dominated by junipers. At night, the orcs of the *Finger-breaking* tribe hunt these lands. 50 **orcs** led by *Muzdog* (HD 2) live here (HD 1 AC 6 1d6 F1 MV 12 ML 8 XP 100). *5 gems*. Their settlement is protected by a palisade and surrounded by spiked pit traps (2d6). There are several large iron spikes with a dozen skulls each near the entrance. These orcs are looking for allies to go to war against *Springmill* – like the orcs of *Grishg* around *Poleveney*.
Both Springmill and Poleveney are small hamlets with 10–40 humans.
So first, about these traps. I said: In the middle of this forest between Springmill and Hillmarva lies the orc camp of Muzdoc, on a small rise, surrounded by a hedge maze of junipers. Narrow trails lead through the junipers up to the gate. What I didn’t say was that this approach was protected by the spiked pit traps.
The party wanted to ambush some orcs so I asked them if any party members had experience as hunters or monster hunters. Yes, two of the elves have no background yet and so their player said one of them was a monster tracker who had wanted to see some more adventure and do some actual hunting. Sure, I said. Anaya knows how the deer travel through the forest, where they like to cross the stream, where one would lie down to hunt deer. And so the party decided to lie in wait a bit further up.
I decided that a lone hunting party consists of 2d6 orcs and rolled up 4 of them. Ordinarily I say ambushes always succeed but these orcs are careful so I still wanted to give them a 1-in-6 chance to sniff out the party. In a way, the chance to surprise the orcs went up from 2-in-6 to 5-in-6. They were surprised.
The party attacked, some went into melee and some shot ranged weapons … and in the end two orcs survived the surprise round, and then the orcs won initiative. Well… if they’re not engaged, they can just leave, I decided.
The party wanted to give chase! I said the orcs split up. I explained the chase rules: Larger groups are easy to avoid, so small groups have a benefit. If the orcs split up, they have a good chance of escaping, even if we just go after them one character per orc. I told them that when they’d catch up, the fight would be be one-on-one. Of all the chase rules, the rules from page X23 in the D&D Expert Set (1981) are perhaps the easiest to understand.
This table compares the numbers between evading party size and the party giving chase, giving a percentage chance of the chase to succeed.
+-----+------+-------+-------+---------+ | 1–4 | 5–12 | 13–24 | 25+ | Success | +-----+------+-------+-------+---------+ | – | – | – | 1–10 | 10% | | – | – | 1–6 | 11–30 | 25% | | – | 1–3 | 7–16 | 31+ | 35% | | 1 | 4–8 | 17+ | – | 50% | | 2–3 | – | – | – | 70% | | 4+ | – | – | – | 90% | +-----+------+-------+-------+---------+
In a forest, evasion can be even higher. The example suggests +25%.
I really like the last paragraph that explains how this allows people to make interesting choices:
Though it might seem strange that it is easier to evade larger groups of opponents, the explanation is simple. A large group of creatures makes much more noise and is easier to identify (and avoid) than a small group. Also, if a large group remains together, they must travel at the speed of the slowest member. If the large group sends out small parties to scout or pursue, these will be more difficult to evade.
In our case, one person chasing one orc in a forest has the orc evading 50+25=75% of the time.
Both orcs made their roll and the camp was warned.
The party wanted to find another group of orcs. I told them the chance to find something specific was 1-in-6 per search party. If the party stays together, it gets one roll. If the party splits, each part gets one roll.
They wanted better odds and said they’d search near the camp. I said that’s fine, I’d give them a 2-in-6 chance to find another group of 2d6 orcs. At the same time, the orcs would be searching for them and also get a chance to find them. If so, they’d meet 4d6 orcs.
I said, in game this would look as follows: slowly sneaking up to the camp, you see watch fires burning bright and horns being blown. They camp is extremely active and on guard. Do you want to stick to the plan? They did not.
Instead, surprisingly, they opted to go back to the site of the first ambush and set another ambush. I figured the orcs would send a part of hunters and scouts to that very spot, trying to pick up their trail, so 4d6 orcs it is!
The party said that they had spread out.
Now I had to figure out how the orcs would be moving. I decided upon three scouting groups of two orcs each, in constant contact via grunts and snorts, giving each other the “all clear” sign, followed by the larger group, all together, armed with long knives, some nets, some crossbows, some spears. In a pickle, I figured one third nets, one third crossbows, one third spears.
The assassin wants to know more. I tell the player to roll for their hear noise skill. If they make it, I tell them, they’ll hear everything. And since they’re a half-orc, they’ll understand it, too. (This is an AD&D character occasionally playing at my open table. I think mixing rules like that is no problem at all.)
The assassin makes the roll and I reveal the orc tactics. I also tell them that any kill in the surprise round would be silent. There’s a lot of back and forth and inter-player discussion. Finally the dwarf says they would have given the assassin their *dharma shawl*, a magic item that allows you to borrow an action from the next round, like an attack. In that case you make two attacks this round and no attack next round, for example.
The assassin proceeds to kill all the scouts, giving the “all clear” grunt every time, all in the surprise round. A successful sneak check grants them automatic surprise. They also have a *cloak of elven kind* so these checks are easily made.
They don’t dare attack the main body of the orcs, though. The part decides to retreat. No problem, I say. The main body of the orcs stumbles on their dead scouts and in the confusion you can all get away. Eight orcs kills, forty two orcs left.
Now what?
The camp gains 1d8 orcs every week from a reserve of 30 left in the general vicinity. I roll a four. So next session there will be 46 orcs in the camp and a reserve of 26 in the woods.
How would you have done it?
#RPG
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On Discord, I said that you have to get rid of the charismatic leader in order to end this quicker. And the orcs are going to relocate when resources start dwindling, so I’m hoping that opens up an avenue to a long time opponent.
On the fediverse, @mdhughes wrote:
Attrition will work for maybe one more sortie, then they’ll go looking for revenge. Burn down some Human or Elf villages.
These things always resulted in siege warfare, players hiring a bunch of soldiers and throwing fireballs.
I like it.
– Alex 2023-08-03 10:00 UTC
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Then the players can burn down an orc fortress - or have much smaller numbers there to deal with, so sounds like elfbait is a good plan.
– bluetyson 2023-08-03 12:43 UTC
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I decided to run mass combat, instead: 2023-08-09 Defending a village against raiders. 🙂
2023-08-09 Defending a village against raiders
– Alex 2023-08-13 09:37 UTC