D&D 5E Average number of enemies per encounter

[Mattywizzat]

The only way I've found to make a solo "boss" monster be a challenge is to let it have two initiatives.

So the boss gets two turns per round, essentially. This makes them significantly tougher.

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[clearstream]

In 5e, an encounter against many low-CR enemies are considered to be (and usually, actually) much deadlier than an encounter against single or small number of higher CR monsters. Also, PCs gain much less XPs from encounters against many low-CR enemies, though the encounter itself is deadly.

So, assuming a party is composed of 4-6 PCs, how many opponents, in average, do you DMs use per encounter?

Also, how many opponents are "too many"?

I am considering to run some adventures and campaigns of older edition D&Ds in 5e. But older adventures tend to use a lot of monsters. For example, in G1 module PCs will meat 20-30 ogres or giants in a single encounter. Even 3.Xe-4e adventures tend to use 10+ monsters from time to time. I guess such encounters will not work at all in 5e.

Let's see, I have 6 PCs - using Fantasy Grounds I have a perfect record (grouped into adventuring days)

2 drow + 1 elite + 3 giant spiders (this fight left one PC behind as rest fled)
6 drow

3 myconids

5 orcs
3 drow

4 spectres
1 spectre + 1 wraith (this fight killed one PC)

10 kuo-toa + 1 kuo-toa monitor

9 kuo-toa + 2 kuo-toa monitors + 1 kuo-toa priest
6 kuo-toa + 2 kuo-toa monitors + 1 kuo-toa priest

1 grick alpha
5 gricks

2 chuul
2 spore servants + 2 myconids + 1 mutated myconid
6 chamberlains + 12 bridesmaids of Zuggtmoy

3 minotaur skeletons

2 elite drow + 1 drow priestess + 1 drow high priestess + 3 drow scouts (this fight left three PCs dead)

2 gelatinous cubes
6 dust mephits + 6 mud mephits

3 drow elite monks

2 ghosts
1 earth elemental + 2 gargoyles
8 animated statues

10 animated statues
4 animated statues + 1 medusa + 1 shadow demon (this fight petrified one PC)
3 earth elementals

I generally find that PCs can handle about 1.5x the recommended XP thresholds. I try to vary encounters, but on average go with "hard", with so far I think four "deadly" encounters.

 

[Dausuul]

Highly variable. Anywhere from one to hundreds. (In the case of "hundreds," the PCs are not expected to kill every monster by conventional means.)

The mean would not be useful, since the "hundreds" scenarios would drag it way up, and even the median is not all that helpful.

 

[steeldragons]

Enough to put the fear of whatever gods they hold dear into them.

If that is one super-above-and-beyond-powerful creature/foe, fine.

If that is overwhelming numbers of peons the party can take out a dozen at a time (maybe 4 or 5 times, but there are 4 or 5 more waves...), fine.

If that is exactly the same number of party members in the form of an NPC party of commensurate level, fine.

But whatever it is, the party should be aware and truly concerned of the distinct possibility that they can fail/fall to the encounter. Success is NEVER guaranteed...but they persevere/try anyway...THAT's what makes them "heroes" within the game world.

 

[Oofta]

The only time I get solos to work is if they're legendary, I make ample use of lair actions and traps/hazards. But at that point they really kind of are fighting multiple opponents, just not all of the opponents are creatures.

In most cases even if I have one big bad, they still have henchmen to even things out.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In a game I ran, one of the standard encounters for a level six party was thirty orcs and a leader. It worked alright. The hardest part was that they had advantage on all of their attack rolls (thanks to the leader), which meant I couldn't just apply a simple statistical distribution to speed up their turn.

 

[OB1]

I'd say I average about 1.5x party size with a range from solo to about 4x. Larger than 4x generally means a more abstract encounter that might break into the full combat rule set to resolve specific situations.

I've found that using 1.5-2x of Party level for CR of solos creates challenging encounters for most parties.


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[Coroc]

Yeah. A whole back, I ran a converted version of Castle Amber (Chateau D'Amberville). The module was so much fun!

But there's this part at the end (kind of spoilers) where the party has to defeat a sequence of guardians. In the old rules, this was an exceptional challenge. In 5e, this was the easiest part of the module because it was just a sequence of individual Big Bads.

If I run it again, I'll re-do that part, but it was a big eye-opener, and it made an awesome adventure incredibly anti-climactic.

For the solo mobs I have found out that the fighter types who dish out loads of damage and got even more hp and ac are the easier ones to construct.

The casters are harder, because of concentration.

A cleric having spirit guardians up is a good start, as is a wizard with improved invisibility or mirror image already in place.

I found out a regenerating vampire is also quite good in surviving for more rounds due to charm etc, but that depends on how "divine" the party is.

A dragon or anything with lair actions is also fine.

Any kind of AE ability helps, something that can decimate the party quite good e.g. a wand of fireballs, even if they are cast at low level.

 

[guachi]

Yeah. A whole back, I ran a converted version of Castle Amber (Chateau D'Amberville). The module was so much fun!

But there's this part at the end (kind of spoilers) where the party has to defeat a sequence of guardians. In the old rules, this was an exceptional challenge. In 5e, this was the easiest part of the module because it was just a sequence of individual Big Bads.

If I run it again, I'll re-do that part, but it was a big eye-opener, and it made an awesome adventure incredibly anti-climactic.

Am running this next. Will take notes to ensure the monsters are suitable foes.

 

[Tormyr]

On average, I use 1 monster per PC. When I use 1 monster, its CR must be several higher than the level of the party.

If you click on my user name, and then click the downloads tab, you can find the Encounter Builder, Monster CR Calculator, and Age of Worms Conversion I did. When I converted encounters from 3.5, I built the 5e encounter to be a Medium encounter for a group of 4 PCs of the same level as the 3.5 EL. So if the 3.5 EL was 5 and the party was 3rd level, I would build a Medium encounter for 4 level 5 PCs. This would make a Deadly encounter for the level 3 PCs. When I had more than 4 PCs, I would scale up the number of enemies as necessary using my Encounter Builder.