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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7021504" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Er, no. It could wipe out a squad, maybe even a platoon if they're packed shoulder-to-shoulder. You're probably going to need between 20 and 50 Fireballs to wipe out a battalion of 800 troops. Meanwhile the troops are shooting back.Eight hundred hobgoblins vs. twenty 9th level mages is probably a tossup, but at least in my world, it's a lot harder to get your hands on twenty 9th level mages. (And the hobgoblins will use their shadow ninjas to attempt assassinations and poisonings in advance of the battle, to whittle those twenty mages down even further. 800 hobgoblins crushes ten 9th level mages.)Also bear in mind that most magic in 5E is extremely short-ranged. Fireball has a range of only 50 yards, compared with 200 yards for longbows.I'm not opposed to better tools for actually running large battles, but I'm fairly confident in my intuition here: quantity has a quality of its own. Hobgoblins and orcs are very much still a threat en masse against small numbers of PCs, even if the PCs are high level.</blockquote>