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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rhenny" data-source="post: 6901019" data-attributes="member: 18333">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.</blockquote>

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