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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6603890" data-attributes="member: 6787650">This is true, but it's equally true of any large combat. The old Gold Box games loved to throw dozens of monsters at you per combat, and I don't see anything wrong with that: a goblin patrol (16 goblins led by 3 bugbears) is a perfectly good opponent for 3 or 4 7th level PCs. The DM has to get good at running those combats quickly (battlemaps help), and those same techniques help for keeping player hirelings/pets/summons under control.Some things that I've found to help (#5 is the most important for me):1.) Spread the pain/fun. Let a player roll initiative/attacks/damage for his own minions. In practice this means that a player (my players at least) won't bring more firepower to bear than he needs. The wizard could have dozens of skeleton archers in each combat, but in practice he only has about ten, and he sometimes leaves them behind while exploring dungeons and such.2.) Allow taking average damage on a hit as an option instead of rolling. Use that option liberally for monsters you control.3.) For any battle where more than 4 combatants are on each side, use a battlemap. Otherwise it gets too confusing keeping track of the verbal descriptions. &quot;Wait, is it ogre #5 or #9 who's down now?&quot;4.) When using a battle map, don't feel obligated to have separate miniatures for each creature. It's okay to have an wolf &quot;blob&quot; of 8 wolves.5.) Buy lots of dice. When 8 wolves are attacking an AC 13 orc, it's easy to roll 8 dice and count how many dice are 9+. &quot;Okay, five hits, that's 35 damage to the orc. He's now a fine mist of blood.&quot; However, it's slow to roll a single d20 eight times and remember how many you've rolled and how many were hits.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6603890, member: 6787650"] This is true, but it's equally true of any large combat. The old Gold Box games loved to throw dozens of monsters at you per combat, and I don't see anything wrong with that: a goblin patrol (16 goblins led by 3 bugbears) is a perfectly good opponent for 3 or 4 7th level PCs. The DM has to get good at running those combats quickly (battlemaps help), and those same techniques help for keeping player hirelings/pets/summons under control. Some things that I've found to help (#5 is the most important for me): 1.) Spread the pain/fun. Let a player roll initiative/attacks/damage for his own minions. In practice this means that a player (my players at least) won't bring more firepower to bear than he needs. The wizard [I]could[/I] have dozens of skeleton archers in each combat, but in practice he only has about ten, and he sometimes leaves them behind while exploring dungeons and such. 2.) Allow taking average damage on a hit as an option instead of rolling. Use that option liberally for monsters you control. 3.) For any battle where more than 4 combatants are on each side, use a battlemap. Otherwise it gets too confusing keeping track of the verbal descriptions. "Wait, is it ogre #5 or #9 who's down now?" 4.) When using a battle map, don't feel obligated to have separate miniatures for each creature. It's okay to have an wolf "blob" of 8 wolves. [B]5.) Buy lots of dice.[/B] When 8 wolves are attacking an AC 13 orc, it's easy to roll 8 dice and count how many dice are 9+. "Okay, five hits, that's 35 damage to the orc. He's now a fine mist of blood." However, it's slow to roll a single d20 eight times and remember how many you've rolled and how many were hits. [/QUOTE]

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