Stealing Seven Samurai

[mrorangesoda]

Background:

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My D&D group has moved over to a more modular style of play and one of the benefits was that a couple of us who were interested would switch into the DMs chair and give him a chance to play a pc on occasion. I am interested in doing so and would like to craft an adventure based around the "actively defending a village from bandits" aspect of Seven Samurai. Most of our adventures are either dungeon exploration/hacknslash or some kind of interpersonal conflict/investigation, so we haven't done any defending adventures. I'd also like to do it with non-human characters, as the main through line of about 2/3rds of the modules have been fighting a crazy cult full of humans and we're in a crazy fantasy world after all.
Other background: we play 3.5 with some pathfinder-y house rules. The party defending the village would most likely be a blasty halfling sorceror, a melee focused half elf Paladin, an melee focused Elf druid with a badger, and a human fighter (our DM's npc who occasionally accompanies us if one or both of the melee folks can't make it). Everyone's at level 2-3 now, but I'd like to wait a couple months to give the new group member more time to get comfortable with the game and everyone else more time to get comfortable with their characters and abilities (everyone chose a totally different class/party role from our last campaign), so I'd want to do this around level 4-5

That said- what would you consider essential and what would you cut out from the Seven Samurai story (both in terms of creating a fun gaming experience for them and in terms of making this managable for a first time DM like me)? I figure they're already gathered as group, so most of the first act of the film is unnecessary.

What creatures/collection of creatures would make good bandits? I'm thinking halflings would make good villagers, both in terms of fluff and also as we've yet to meet any other halflings in our adventure and that might be fun for the halfling PC in our group.

Any pitfalls you foresee in adapting this into an adventure?

Thanks for any thoughts/input.

[phaedrusxy]

Gnolls make awesome bandits. I think The Seven Samurai could easily be turned into a D&D adventure series. For essentials, the number of enemies has to be such that basically the "samurai" don't have much hope of beating them alone. So they'll need to come up with strategies that involve the villagers, the terrain of the village (and modifying it), etc. The thing to be careful with this is that it could easily lead to a TPK. So I'd say you need to make it very clear in-game that they don't have any hope of fighting off "the bandits" on their own, but rather they need to think very tactically, and use all available assets. Depending on your players, this could work well, or not at all.

Don't expect it to go down as you planned, either. PCs always find a way to throw a monkey wrench into the DM's plot. So be ready for that, and don't try to railroad them into doing it "the right way". If they come up with some crazy way to trick all of the bandits into a slot canyon, and then flood it with the river, go along with them, I'd say.

Please come back and let us know how it went, also. Some of us might wind up using what you come up with.

[mrorangesoda]

Thanks for the advice about the adventure in general. I certainly don't want a TPK (my beguiler needs protection when he gets back after all). It does seem like the main problem is in balancing having some kind of plan as to how to make this fun/survivable with the openness to allow the players to improvise how they see fit.

Gnolls do make good bandits, but I think they'd eat a little community of halflings rather than demand their harvest at a later date and give them time to recruit a bit of help (also, we're fighting some in our current adventure that are helping an evil baron).

I think I'm looking at using a group of Shifters, as I do like that animalistic vibe, or Tieflings, which would be fun for the Paladin. Both are 1/2 CR for Warrior 1, so the squads the group would fight at the correct EL would be 10-12 under ideal conditions for a 4th level party of 4 (if things were to proceed along movie lines, I'd assume they'd fight off 3 squads the first day, one broken up overnight, and half again as many in the final battle for a total of over 60 bandits) . Part of the idea/problem is that defending the village with just seven samurai four adventurers is supposed to stretch things a little thin, those squads wouldn't go to the same place over and over and (again, if things progressed like the movie) would test out all of the fortifications (possibly splitting the party in the process- though it's likely they'll have a group of villagers with spears to help out).

The leader is going to be a sorcerer/rogue with a high umd score, who I think will have a wand of something that they had stolen from somewhere (enlarged magic missile?) that will replace the threat of the rifles from the movie. (Basically that the enemies have a way to snipe at you from far away if care/cover is not taken). Does this sound reasonable or is the threat of defending a village enough without adding more?

Are there any rules anywhere about building basic fortifications and how long that takes? I want to give them time to prep the village, but they shouldn't get to turn it into a keep. Just what they and the villagers could do in the time they have to prepare (something like x wall units a day, y ditch units, ect)

[phaedrusxy]

I'm sure the Stronghold Builders Guide has information about putting together fortifications. I don't think the threat of "rifles" is really needed, and if it is, you could do that easily enough with archers.

[mrorangesoda]

Thanks for the recommendation- unfortunately after checking it out online, it only has info for building your own keep, not building simple walls/fences, digging ditches, etc.
No wands/magic in general is probably for the best- less for me to keep track of.

[kilgore]

You could always jsut say that the villagers know how to build the fortifications but do not know how to fight and need training to fight. That could keep the group occupied adn let your villagers build the walls you want or have the villagers do it under the advice of the pcs. Do something to keep the PCs busy (like a scouting expedition that they had in the movie) and while they are gone the villagers are busy building away and you can make best judgement on how far the villagers got.

[phaedrusxy]

You could always jsut say that the villagers know how to build the fortifications but do not know how to fight and need training to fight. That could keep the group occupied adn let your villagers build the walls you want or have the villagers do it under the advice of the pcs. Do something to keep the PCs busy (like a scouting expedition that they had in the movie) and while they are gone the villagers are busy building away and you can make best judgement on how far the villagers got.

They could also do some hit-and-run types of skirmish attacks against the bandits, to lead them on a wild goose chase and distract them. This would give them something to do, give the villagers time to work on the fortifications, and reduce the number of bandits they have to fight. As long as the PCs have a way to get away somehow (a ready boat in the river, etc), it could work.

[mrorangesoda]

You could always jsut say that the villagers know how to build the fortifications but do not know how to fight and need training to fight. That could keep the group occupied adn let your villagers build the walls you want or have the villagers do it under the advice of the pcs. Do something to keep the PCs busy (like a scouting expedition that they had in the movie) and while they are gone the villagers are busy building away and you can make best judgement on how far the villagers got.

In my head, the villagers would be doing the work, but most likely under the direction of the pcs- because why accept responsibilities for defenses you didn't have any input in (and also, that's what the movie is like- the villagers do the work but under the direction of Kambei). The whole thing could be gridded out and the pcs get to chose x squares of wall, y squares of ditches, z squares of spiked logs, or whatever else they come up with per day. If there's not rules for that somewhere, I guess I could just make them up (with the idea that there are some limits to resources like time).
I had considered the training thing as well. Since they're halflings, I figured most would have their commoner proficiency with slings/stones/thrown weapons, but by training with the pcs could pick up a proficiency in another weapon (likely one that the town blacksmith could make enough of. In my head, short spears cause that's what the villagers in the movie used- but they might have other ideas). If they train them, I'd also considered having them each make a cha roll, and if it came up high enough their individual platoon would get an inspiration bonus whenever they were fighting within x feet of the PC (kind of like how some of the villagers were in awe of Kyūzō and some grew to respect Kikuchiyo).

They could also do some hit-and-run types of skirmish attacks against the bandits, to lead them on a wild goose chase and distract them. This would give them something to do, give the villagers time to work on the fortifications, and reduce the number of bandits they have to fight. As long as the PCs have a way to get away somehow (a ready boat in the river, etc), it could work.

Knowing some of the players. "Lets go get the bandits" will be something that comes up. I think it's smart as long as it doesn't get out of control/get them killed. I guess the biggest challenge is figuring out the number of bandits that will make it a defend the village adventure I'm aiming for (as opposed to "kick the dungeon door down and waste some monsters"- which is fun, but we do that a lot) while not overwhelming them and killing everyone's character. Any advice in that direction? I'm not really familiar with CR/ECL.

thanks for all the feedback so far.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

I dunno, you don't really have to cut much out. Keep events and set-up as it is. You could always have the pcs gain their wealth gains by finding the bandit's lair post-battle.

There's a lot of other movies for a samurai campaign you could draw from. Yojimbo would be easy and fun with a group. DAMNIT CAT STOP CLIMBING ON MY KEYBOARD I NEED MY HANDS FOR TYPING NOT PETS! Anyway, I just recommend you keep seven as the basis, and then once the bandits are done expand out and have them traverse the dangerous land of samurai movies! I'd play it. And it gives you an episodic way of getting your time as a dm, someone else goes, new story with the party easy as you like. Besides, it'd take a good hour to learn a story and another hour or two for modding it. 

As far as bandits... you dont want anything that can kill peasant halflings too easy, so maybe no mounted gnolls or such. But my first thought was riders on wargs, or riding wolves of some kind. Those just scream bandit-fodder.

[Hans-E]

The image from Seven Samurai that has always stuck in my head, more than anything else, is that of the bandits who have broken through into the village, and are surrounded, harried, and slaughtered by villagers wielding long spears.  DnD isn't very good at accounting for numerical advantage.  It's balanced more like ridiculous action movies, where the hero is immune to the pitiful attacks of the stock bad guys.  Finding some way to replicate this from Seven Samurai would at least provide a decent cut scene, and maybe some interesting tactical battles: the villagers may be able to hem in the bandits, but it will still be up to the PCs to finish them off.