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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6603391" data-attributes="member: 6787650">I'm not so sure about that. I've run large battles before (40-ish total combatants) and I don't think 100 orcs would be that different or even that long. In a scenario where all 100 orcs are NPCs I could see making some simplifying assumptions (every two hits kills an orc, don't bother rolling damage; every turn roll 6 attacks against a PC as long as at least 20 orcs are alive; orcs fight to the death) which would make it even quicker.In fact, there's a decent chance I'll wind up running a combat almost like this tonight. (The scenario: PCs have acquired a vampire &quot;ally&quot; to help them fight the hobgoblin armies. They've been ignoring him and the whole war while they go dungeon crawling, so in order to bring them up to speed on the plot I think I'll have them play out two little one-shots at the beginning of the session. One of them is &quot;Edgewalker kills a tent full of hobgoblins&quot;, and the second is &quot;Edgewalker and a squad of animated hobgoblin skeletons kill a platoon of forty hobgoblins.&quot; Then when Edgewalker turns out, later on, to still be a bad guy with armies of hobgoblin vampire spawns, they will be properly scared in a way that wouldn't happen if I just informed them of events.)As far as what CR they'd be: CR doesn't make sense for groups, but assuming you mean &quot;what level would PCs have to be in order for this to be a fair challenge,&quot; officially 100 orcs would still be a Deadly challenge for 4 18th level PCs. In practice I think you could handle them at 8th level. In fact, since it's &quot;open field&quot;, there are some groups of PCs who could handle the 100 orcs at 1st level...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6603391, member: 6787650"] I'm not so sure about that. I've run large battles before (40-ish total combatants) and I don't think 100 orcs would be that different or even that long. In a scenario where all 100 orcs are NPCs I could see making some simplifying assumptions (every two hits kills an orc, don't bother rolling damage; every turn roll 6 attacks against a PC as long as at least 20 orcs are alive; orcs fight to the death) which would make it even quicker. In fact, there's a decent chance I'll wind up running a combat almost like this tonight. (The scenario: PCs have acquired a vampire "ally" to help them fight the hobgoblin armies. They've been ignoring him and the whole war while they go dungeon crawling, so in order to bring them up to speed on the plot I think I'll have them play out two little one-shots at the beginning of the session. One of them is "Edgewalker kills a tent full of hobgoblins", and the second is "Edgewalker and a squad of animated hobgoblin skeletons kill a platoon of forty hobgoblins." Then when Edgewalker turns out, later on, to still be a bad guy with armies of hobgoblin vampire spawns, they will be properly scared in a way that wouldn't happen if I just informed them of events.) As far as what CR they'd be: CR doesn't make sense for groups, but assuming you mean "what level would PCs have to be in order for this to be a fair challenge," officially 100 orcs would still be a Deadly challenge for 4 18th level PCs. In practice I think you could handle them at 8th level. In fact, since it's "open field", there are some groups of PCs who could handle the 100 orcs at 1st level... [/QUOTE]

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