Large Scale Combat... how to keep it interesting?

[BrianL03]

So my co-DM and I are looking to drop our players into a situation where a prosperous mining town is going to be under siege and they're trapped inside, having to deal with the attackers who are in particular coming after them (they have the McGuffin that the attackers need to raise their all-powerful leader).

We're running D&D 4e with five characters, including the co-DM's and mine (we take turns being the DM or a PC in the party). All characters are 3rd level:


Eladrin Druid (me)
Gnome Wizard (co-DM)
Halfling Rogue
Shifter Ranger (melee-focused)
Dwarf Paladin

We also have an NPC Lizardfolk Cleric at the moment, but I kind of want to drop him ASAP just because of the crazy number of characters whoever is DMing has to deal with.

Obviously this situation is going to fall into a massive battle across the entire town, whether from the walls, in the streets, or from house to house. I have a few ideas of how to keep it interesting, such as moving from location to location, fighting to save (or protect) a particular person for a certain amount of time, dealing with a boss-type character, watching out for falling debris and burning buildings, but want to be able to keep this a hectic, dangerous pace to everything without the combat bogging everything down.

What recommendations do you have for this kind of large-scale combat and keeping the players interested, paying attention, and not getting bored after hacking through another Warforged at the town square?

[itches]

Two things.

1) Keep the combat as simple as possible on your end, the fact that it is big will add complications enough to make it seem massive. Don't stop your PCs from coming up with overly complicated actions however

2) Try to always make it seem like the PCs are either making progress, or losing ground. Either a sense of acomplishment or worry about getting taken out will help avoid the "I attack". *roll* "12 damnage." "He attacks. *roll* 4 "damage"

[Captain Gavis]

I would also keep in mind the relative sizes of the armies in question if they have about even forces then encounter with enemy not already engaged in combat is going to be lower. In a sense combat will be happening around them but not involve them unless they wish it to. If that helps alleviate the problem.

[treehouse]

Do you have Heroes of Battle? I've been using the Victory Point system (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7104) to decent effect. You don't actually even need Heroes of Battle; it gives you some common sense guidelines to get started, but I just created my own objectives and assigned values that seemed appropriate to each one.

[Black Plauge]

If the PCs are significantly better (equiped and/or capable) than the regular guard, then they treat them as a mobile reaction force during the siege. Enemy gets scaling ladders or a siege engine up against the wall? PCs rush to the area to provide the reinforcements needed to push the ladders off and burn the towers. Enemy has a secret weapon? PCs must act to prevent its use. Enemy breaches the outer wall? PCs are tasked with holding the breech for X rounds while the regular guards retreat to the inner wall. Gate in danger of falling? PCs stage a foray to draw attention away from the gate while it's reinforced.

Basically, think of the role Aaragon, Gimli, and Legolas play in the Battle for Helm's Deep. The large scale battle rages on around the players as they move from crisis to crisis. Successfully dealing with each crisis allows the battle to go in the party's favor. Failing means the enemy gains an advantage (and perhaps leads to the next crisis, as Legolas failing to kill the orc firebrand did).

The most important factor to making this work, is to set things up so that the end condition on every given crisis isn't a Rout (i.e. PCs kill or knock out every enemy). Instead, make liberal use of alternative endgames: hold a position for X rounds, kill some a specific enemy (usually a leader), sieze some important bit of ground, push the enemy out of some piece of territory. See these articles (http://at-will.omnivangelist.net/series/path-to-victory/) for some ideas.