I am currently preparing for our next session. It is the start of a war campaign based on the Heroes of Battle rules supplement.
The setting: An encamped human chivalric army is preparing to set siege on a nearby city. Siege towers are under construction. As the army has unboarded from a large fleet the camp is close to the sea. This also applies to the construction site. The logs come from a nearby coastal forest.
Unknown to the human army the city is allied to sahuagin. The war starts with a massive surprise assault of sahuagin troops in the dark of night. Chaos everywhere. The PC's are assigned the task to prevent the sahuagin from destroying the siege engines.
The construction site has a cliff. So the sahuagin intend to roll the siege towers over the cliff.
Now the rules question: How many sahuagin does it take to roll a siege tower? This is crucial as the sahuagin will withdraw once they have taken enough casualties to prevent the rest from rolling the siege towers.
Heroes of Battle gives the weight of a siege tower with 5 tons. The rules also say: "A siege tower can be pushed by nine creatures on the lower level at a speed of 10 feet (siege towers cannot run)." (Heroes of Battle, p. 67)
While this seems to be pretty clear it is not satisfying. Certainly nine hedgehogs would not suffice to roll a siege tower. On the other hand you might need less than nine storm giants. You might rule nine medium creatures - but medium creatures' strength varies between 3 and 20+. In the end rolling e siege tower is a function of strength. So: How much force do you need?
"To figure out how fast a siege engine moves, look up ghweight in the siege engine description, figure out the strength of whatver's pulling it, then consult Tabele 9-1: Carrying Capacity, page 162 of the Player's Handbook. Divide the siege engine's weight by four if the siege engine has wheels (most do)." (Heroes of Battle, p. 64f)
The siege towers in question do have wheels. So we are talking about an effective weight of 1,25 tons (5 tons divided by 4).
Sahuagin have Str 14. weight limit for Str 14 is 175 lb. The PHB says: "A character can push or drag as much as fifve times his or her maximum load. Favorable conditions (such as being on smooth ground or dragging a slick object) can double these numbers, and bad cirdumstances (such es being on broken ground or pudhing an object that snags) can reduce them to one-half or less." (p. 162)
The construction site is a clearing of hard ground that has been prepared for rolling the towers so no modifier applies.
So one Sahuagin can push or drag 175lbx5=875lb. The effective weight of the towers (1,25 tons) sums up to 2500 lb. Thus THREE SAHUAGIN COULD ROLL ONE SIEGE TOWER!
While I think I have all the rules right, I just do not like this idea. It seems ridiculously easy. Sahuagin are strong but they are not trolls.
Do you see a logical solution that would allow the encounter to "feel right" and provides enough rules to handle the situation? I think that rules are important because PC's can very well come up with ideas like "We push from the opposite side - can we roll the tower back?" I would like to have an answer to this question.
I'm not sure how the HoB numbers were generated - they're not using the same method you used. Average Strength (10) works out to just five standard humans pushing the tower if they were the same. Meanwhile, the divide-by-four thing appears to only apply when figuring out how fast the tower moves, not whether or not it can be moved (although if it's over their maximum heavy load, they can't push it; if it's under their max heavy load, you use the speed table to figure out how fast). It's just badly written.
However, here's something else to consider: A sahaguin is as strong as your average goliath. Similarly, an average human would need someone to Aid Another on a Strength-related task to have the same effective modifier as a sahaguin. Thus, assuming the HoB rules assumed average humans when writing the rules, having each sahaguin count as two humans would be a legit starting point, in which case four or five could push the tower.
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Use advanced HD Sahuagin, they reach size large at 6 HD giving them big buffs to Str and carrying capacity. At only a CR 4 challenge they can be mixed in to a group of CR 2 normal Sahuagin without too much issue. Those will give you Str 22 "trolls" that can push around 3,900 lbs. each, and give the PC's a roughly CR 6 encounter (at two of them) per tower.
Simple explanation behind the pushing is that siege towers are only meant to go forward and thus will not easily turn to roll themselves off of the cliff. In addition, while the ground in the camp is prepared to roll the towers (likely by stamping it down and ensuring it's dry) there are a number of other considerations that are likely to slow it's progress. Intervening parts of the camp like buildings or latrines, that the path to the cliff likely wasn't prepared for rolling, changes in altitude, and headwinds that could be blowing inland over the cliff top. There are a lot of things that can potentially slow a siege tower that you can take into account.
I'd definetly agree that you should be able to block a siege tower from going where it wasn't intended to go. Pushing one over rough terrain should be harder as well as slower. Now "how hard will it be to roll a siege tower off a cliff" really just depends on how hard you want it to be.
The wheels really do make a lot of difference (consider a couple of ordinary humans trying to push a car, compared to pushing the same weight without wheels), and while 5 tons seems like a lot, it's quite a bit easier than you might think on decent ground with a few strong people doing the pushing. I'm not actually all that great with estimates, but I'm thinking that's in the weight range of a small truck with a load; it's very difficult, but not impossible to move.
But there are a lot of potential problems that can make the moving of it much more difficult. When it's used in battle, it typically has extra weight in the form of armed warriors (a full complement of 27 average humans adds another couple of tons even with only light gear), and has to handle whatever vaguely difficult terrain the defenders have put in the way. It's also not really designed for steering, so you either move it in very wide circles to turn, or you have to push it sideways (which would presumably negate the benefit of having wheels for that movement purpose). The sahuagin don't necessarily have to worry about those problems.
Three sahuagin might theoretically be capable of moving the tower slowly along the ground, but not if they encounter any sort of difficulty and it's unlikely the attacking army bothered to clear the ground in the direction of the cliffs. Given how easy it is to interfere, I'd only expect them to manage movement if they keep anyone trying to stop them right out of the way, so they'd give up as soon as they didn't have the numbers to hold off any opposition.
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Takeing a look at it I did a little ball park math and rattled some ideas around in my head and this is what I came up with.
At the begining of the chapter it says the following about siege engines-
Setting up and Moving Siege Engines: It takes a minute to set up or take down a ballista and 10 minutes to set up or take down anything else. To figure out how fast a siege engine moves, look up the weight in the siege engine description, figure out the strength of whatever’s pullingit, then consult Table 9-1:Carrying Capacity,page 162 of the players handbook.Divide the siege engine's weight by four if the siege enginehas wheels (most do).
Historically the people pushing the sige towers were generally conscripts, usually just farmers or any other common man who was able bodied, since the job was almost assured death at the hands of archers firing from castle walls, so the job was left to fodder. That being said, the people in the tower where infantry men who were probably lightly armored and equipped so that they could rush the fortifications interior to take out said archers, and weaken the resistance inside well the outside forces crash the doors down to get inside.
Assuming that the person pushing a siege tower is a level 1 commoner conscript with a strength score of 10, that would mean he could push/drag up too 500 lbs by himself. Now if you apply the bit about moving siege engines and assuming that the average weight of each solder in the tower was 300 lbs with gear (and adding that to the weight of the tower itself), that would mean that you would need to be able to push 3,850 lbs (15,400 lbs/4=3,850) since the tower was on wheels. That wold mean that you would need 8 men in order to exert enough force to move up to 4000 lbs. I would assume that the reason they list 9 people was probably because that is the base amount of troops that a level can hold, and also figuring an extra body to help in case someone drops.
Over all you may want to institute a rule that an additional number of people on each side can get the tower moving based on the capacity of all the pushers, I.E the speed of the tower would be dependent strictly on the carrying capacity of the crew instead of dead locked at 10 ft a round. Something like 15 ft if you can get the total weight into the category of all the pushers heavy load, and 20 ft if you can get it into everyone's light load. This would mean that the tower could benefit from more than the base amount of operators and pushing the tower still falls under the rules for carrying capacity.
That way you have not only a thematic reason for having a lot of men to push the tower, but you have a mechanical reason for it as well. Also, this would mean you could have the cinematic appeal of having strong men "take up the slack" as it where, and compensate for fewer men, or lead to the Tolken-esq cave troll pulling a tower all by himself due to his amazing strength.
There's an important question that's been missed: Why don't the frog-dudes just burn the towers? Only one guy needs to reach the tower to do it, it can be done much more safely, and it generally seems a lot easier.
Customer Disservice of the House of Trolls Resident Secretly Ron Paul God of Spite and Sloth
There's an important question that's been missed: Why don't the frog-dudes just burn the towers? Only one guy needs to reach the tower to do it, it can be done much more safely, and it generally seems a lot easier.
Siege towers actually have a lot of hp, 1,800 if I recall, and unlike vessels that "crash" if you damage enough sections a siege tower needs to be brought down to half of it's hp before it becomes nonfunctional. To boot many have specially cured hide covering them which gives them a mesure of protection from fire if I recall (a special modification that costs more gold than standard, but a decent investment considering that fire is probably the most predominate energy type in the game, and can be readily accessed by both the magical and mundane). As a side note, fire might also not be he first thought of aquatic dwelling creatures when it comes to an offensive.
Siege towers actually have a lot of hp, 1,800 if I recall, and unlike vessels that "crash" if you damage enough sections a siege tower needs to be brought down to half of it's hp before it becomes nonfunctional.
If I recall correctly, immersion in elemental damage, such as acid or fire, does 20d6. Given that, in just over a minute the siege towers will be dead. That's not bad, and significantly less troublesome than physically moving these multiple large structures over a cliff.
To boot many have specially cured hide covering them which gives them a mesure of protection from fire if I recall (a special modification that costs more gold than standard, but a decent investment considering that fire is probably the most predominate energy type in the game, and can be readily accessed by both the magical and mundane).
Given that they're actually bothering with siege engines, I was under the impression that they had relatively little funds and no mages to speak of. It'd be much more efficient to have a single highly skilled archer shoot an Arrow of Total Anihlation at the wall than to use siege engines, not to mention the mages simply invalidating the entire army or just flying over the walls and murdering, or just removing the walls with Shape Stone or the like.
Armies and sieges don't exist with decent-leveled mages. This is especially true, as the PCs must be on a timeframe. Otherwise, they'd do a proper siege and just starve the enemy out. Really, once Flight is on the table, they really should just fly the highest-level warriors over the wall and open the gates at night, and just swarm the city from that.
As a side note, fire might also not be he first thought of aquatic dwelling creatures when it comes to an offensive.
Why not? They have experience with the surface and current contact with the city, given their abilty to come to aid the city. It seems relatively simple and obvious.
Customer Disservice of the House of Trolls Resident Secretly Ron Paul God of Spite and Sloth
Given that they're actually bothering with siege engines, I was under the impression that they had relatively little funds and no mages to speak of. It'd be much more efficient to have a single highly skilled archer shoot an Arrow of Total Anihlation at the wall than to use siege engines, not to mention the mages simply invalidating the entire army or just flying over the walls and murdering, or just removing the walls with Shape Stone or the like.
I myself just go for the simple explination that around 100 people of any level can counter and overwhelm any spell. ANY SPELL. Simple, clean, solves the "Why aren't mages awesome?" problem as any large riot can kill a wizard or other spellcaster as their spells sputter and their divinations fail to uncover it's existence. Most large castles, towers, and walled cities gain total immunity to mortal spellcasters due to their manpower heavy construction times (antimagic rune on ever brick and stone) making traditional warfare still the most effective battle plan when magical and mundane assassination fail.
Considering he's the DM and it's his setting, he can use whatever explanation he wants to establish that Sahuagin want some siege towers pushed off the cliff.
