D&D 5E How much punishment can a party take?

[TerraDave]

According to the DMG 6-8 medium to hard encounters, allowing for around 2-3 short rests.

Throw a wave at them, then another. Then let them short rest for 5 minutes. Repeat, with two waves and another rest. Then do it again again, this time with three waves.

To do something like this, you need waves of about 1300 XP each (according to the dmg for 4th level charecters, 250 XP per charecter for medium, 375 for hard, I am doing a rough average of 325 times 4)

skeletons are 50 each, scarecrows 200, vultures 10 (giant vultures are 200).

OK, it gets a little harder. When you have multiple opponents, you are supposed to adjust HP. But if your party can hit flying targets and multiple enemies--through area spells or great weapon fighting or two weapon fighting or something--I would not adjust that much. And you won't get much of a wave. Lets say double it.

If you have 5 vultures with skeletons and two scarecrows before adjusting that is 700 which becomes 1400. You can drop some to make this a bit easier, though this actually feels about right, especially if there is a delay before the scarecrows make contact. You will probably want to mix things up (consider a few of the giant vultures at some point), but this should work as a sort of benchmark.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[robus]

When it comes time to run your battle I really like [MENTION=66434]ExploderWizard[/MENTION]'s system proposed here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Efficiently&p=6744493&viewfull=1#post6744493

But there are lots of other good ideas in that thread (and much simpler than the system proposed by WotC)

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have an scenario in mind for a game I'm running. It involves a large scale invasion by skeletons riding vultures, and some scarecrows on foot. Taking into account there's like 200 villagers to keep them busy, and the party of four is at fourth level, how many of them can they handle if the attack just won't stop? I don't want to kill the party, but I want to beat them within one inch of their lives so they feel some despair and the urgency.

That's easy: don't describe exact numbers, just that there are 'waves' of them, and keep 'em coming until the party is as stressed as you wanted. Then give them an out, or have the assault end or whatever it was you had in mind.

Well, um yes the DMG says. But I'm not finding that helpful at all. I trip over the numbers. I'm asking because I have some problems with the math and the confusing rules.

The CR guidelines have been, ironically, complicated by the simplification of bounded accuracy. ;P But you can do without them, entirely...

I want to have an army of them fight my players -a 4th level party of four-. This is like the first time I so something like this in 5e, and as good as bounded accuracy is, it means that I cannot just drown players in minions without risking a TPK. (I'm not a number-cruncher)

Yeah 'army' scenes are prettymuch out if you're going to stick to mechanics like glue. 'Narrating' the larger battle, and playing through pockets of it where only a manageable number of enemies come against the PCs at a time might be a way to go.

 

[Rhenny]

I like the idea of doing the battle more as a narrative. Describe the scenario each round and ask players what they want to do. If a PC gets into melee (or targeted with ranged attacks), just narrate how many of the enemy attack.

You could use the mob attacks section in the DMG to help you speed up the battle (p. 250). For each PC, figure out what the skeletons or other enemies needs to hit. Then, if you deem that the pc is within range of a group, just use the odds to deal out damage. For example, if the skeletons need a 17-18 to hit the fighter, you can have him swarmed by 5 skeletons, which yields 1 hit. If the wizard (ac 13 ish) gets attacked by 2 skeletons, he'll get hit once too. If he/she is swarmed by 5 skeletons, 2 hits...6 skeletons, 3 hits, etc. Of course, if the wizard has a shield spell, he/she can opt to use it and it might save his/her bacon that round. If the PC kills a few of the attackers, you can easily narrate that two more of the foes move in to take their place, until you feel they've had enough. If you want to give them some breathing time, it can take extra rounds for the new reinforcements to join in.

This way, you can just have the players attack, and then basically assign damage to them each round.

When you feel as if they have taken enough damage, narrate a change in tactics, or use some of the actions that they players have said they are doing (intimidate, spell power, other effects) to narrate a shift in the tide of battle.

One advantage to using the mob attack rules is that it eliminates the chance of critical hits against the PCs (unless you use some other mechanic to simulate which hits might be critical). If you are actually attacking each PC with 5 or 6 foes in any one round, the battle would be much more swingy/deadly with the occurrence of critical hits so eliminating them will give you more control.

 

[Dausuul]

Actual play experience says: it varies widely, with builds and especially player tactics.

This x1000. The CR guidelines are pretty rough and ready to begin with (doesn't help that the Monster Manual CRs are inconsistent both with the DMG and with each other), but even if they were rigorously precise and massively playtested, they couldn't account for what resources your party has available and what smarts your players bring to the table.

Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that the monsters in question a) have little instinct for self-preservation and b) are dumb as stumps. Cunning play against such foes can make a mockery of CR. Skeletons are not as exploitable as zombies--they're faster and have ranged attacks--but they're still pretty exploitable.

Then, of course, there's the fact that combat involves rolling a whole bunch of dice, and the dice may be kind or they may be cruel. My latest adventure had monsters that could seize control of PC spells and turn them back on the party if the caster failed a Charisma save. This is a very potent and deadly ability, and I set the monsters' CR accordingly. The actual impact on the party? Zilch. The casters threw spells around merrily all session long, and made every single goddamn save. (No, I'm not bitter or anything. )

All of which is to say: What you're asking for is not something that can be done by anyone except you. We simply don't know who you've got at your table. And even you are still subject to the whim of the dice; if the encounter is calibrated to bring the party to the brink of TPK, then by definition, it will take only a few bad rolls to tip them over. The only way to reliably approach TPK without crossing over is to fudge it.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You could also use the minion concept from 4e, having half of each wave or maybe a whole wave thrown in, of enemies just having 1 hp, the pcs wont necessarily know which ones are minions initially, and it will make the fight last longer, having them use more resources, since they will know that some of the enemies are more vulnerable than others. You can use the same statblock as normal skeletons/scarecrows, but maybe slightly reduce the minions damage output, say 1d4 or 1d6 when a minion hits.

Minions that are unrecognizable are a bad idea. It is hiding information from players in a not so fair manner.
Minions that are clearly recognizable as minions are fair play.
I think good adventuring days are. 3 encounters with 2-3 waves each. Usually in the for of reenforcements due to sloppy planning on the pc side. If the do better they may have a very short rest of a minute or so which allows for new surprise and healing spells or buffs without wasting prescious actions.

 

[Caliburn101]

This isn't complex to do, quite the opposite in fact.

Throw a succession of 'encounters' at the party which equate to an average encounter (in terms of groups from the army they face engaging with the party at different times, but with a continuous narrative of events).

Keep throwing average encounters are them until they start using their big hitting limited use abilities. At that point, throw a very difficult one at them and keep the pressure up with reinforcements.

Wait until the first PC goes down then throw in a plot twist that sees the pressure drop off, like the cavalry arriving, or a distant horn sounds and the bad guys inexplicably withdraw. There are many satisfying ways to do this.

Actually, with experience, you will eventually be able to judge when the encounter had reached the maximum threat the party can handle, and stop adding to their enemy's strength.

If you have been slavish about the CR balance of encounters to this point in your game, then the effect on your players will be significant, as they will have had one foot hanging over the precipice and faced a TPK for the first time - without their ever actually being on the cards of course . Victory is much sweeter and the game more enjoyable when the players have a sense of their characters mortality, and the willingness of the GM to throw real threats their way from time to time.

The CR system is a bit borked to be honest. I don't use it much - it tends to deliver walkovers most of the time with experienced players. There is much to be said in running a game where 'appropriate' threats are tackled by a party as much by their own design and planning as the GM's fiat.

 

[TheEvilDM]

The masochistic party says, "Kill me, kill me!"

The Evil DM replies, "Nope."

You called?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

All of which is to say: What you're asking for is not something that can be done by anyone except you. We simply don't know who you've got at your table. And even you are still subject to the whim of the dice; if the encounter is calibrated to bring the party to the brink of TPK, then by definition, it will take only a few bad rolls to tip them over. The only way to reliably approach TPK without crossing over is to fudge it.

Well, there is one other way: you can reliably approach TPK in the players' heads by putting them up against something that they think will kill them, if they don't think of a way out. Then they can avoid TPK by either exploiting an enemy weakness (either one they discover themselves or one you leak to them) or recruiting allies or defeating the enemy in detail or by running and hiding. To make this work, the players need to know some facts about the opposition in advance, which could happen through witnessing an event (Darth Maldus single-handedly wrecks all seven of the Kingsguard and then reanimates them as his own personal wights; the player characters witness as they are smuggling the king to safety) or just hearing about a reputation (Thok the Ugly is a black belt in savate and he once bit the throat out of an ogre) or an intelligence briefing from a friendly source (which might even involve handing out stat blocks to the players directly to represent the "briefing").

The point: the event the OP is going for is probably not really near-TPK at all, it is "dramatic tension," and it can happen prospectively. In Dausuul's anecdote, with the monsters that reflect spells: if the players had known in advance about the spell-reflection, that would have increased the tension even though in the actual event it wound up having no impact.