Am I doing this right?

[Garan]

I am a new DM, and after my last session I have to wonder if I am being challenging enough.
Here is what happened:
I sent three of the four (one couldn't make it) down a road. The party consisted of a gnomish rogue, an elven wizard, and a human paladin.
I had them facing 7 bandits. 5 of them had swords, 2 had bows. The stats for the bandits with swords were: 1d8+1 hit dice, 30 speed, AC 14 (+2 armor, +2 shield), touch 10, flatfooted 14. Their attack was a longsword +2/1d8+1. With a bow they had +1 dexterity over +1 strength, so they had +1 dexterity to their AC and had an attack of +2/1d6 (with the appropriate criticals for both of them). I gave them improved initiative as their feat.
In the first round, the rogue killed one of the ones with a bow, and my wizard cast Hypnosis on the five with swords, and succeeded with two of them. They then went on to roll a natural 20 on a diplomacy check to get them to attack their former comrades ( decided not to make them make separate checks). The entire fight lasted two rounds, and the only thing lost was the wizard's spell.
So: Am I doing this right?

[Canarr]

Don't think so, no. Here's why:

Hypnotism only makes the affected creatures two steps more friendly than before - meaning, if they'd been Hostile before, they'd be Indifferent now. Changing that attitude to Helpful (necessary, IMO, if you want them to attack their former allies) requires a DC 30 Diplomacy check, and a Nat 20 doesn't give you an automatic success.

Also, making that Diplomacy check takes at least 1 minute (10 rounds) - not really feasible within combat. So, they shouldn't have been able to make them attack the other bandits; getting them to stand down and quit the fight while staring at the pretty colors would be the effect I'd expect from the spell - until the normal end of a fascinate-effect, of course.

[NikitaDarkstar]

We kind of need to know the levels of the characters to be able to give challenge advice.

Also keep in mind that by RAW natural 1's and natural 20's don't mean auto fail or auto success on skill-checks. (You can however house-rule it that way) And I'm fairly sure diplomacy doesn't work that way/doesn't work once combat has begun (at least not without a pretty decent penalty), at least logically it shouldn't, but D&D and logic has never mixed.

[Venusaur]

Well, the text for hypnotism says one reasonable request. Attack your comrades seems a little unreasonable to me. Everything else looks good to me.

[Garan]

Ok, so they were all level 1, and I probably should look up those rules and know them a bit better if I am going to allow them. Thank you, though!

[hymer]

If those guys were level 1, you were actually pretty hard on them according to rules on XP. Seven lvl 1 warriors (CR½ each) on a party of three guys is worth about the same as an EL 4 is to a group of four lvl 1 characters.
A strategy of dishing out the enemies in smaller, but more numerous, packages is less likely to cause a random wipe when the dice go bad on the players, and gives them the chance to pull back for the day if they're low on resources.

[Garan]

Well, I've seen what people use for "human warrior", but I tone it down from that. I kind of based it actually off of 1st edition rules for "bandit" (such as AC, health, damage).

[Garan]

Well, I've seen what people use for "human warrior", but I tone it down from that. I kind of based it actually off of 1st edition rules for "bandit" (such as AC, health, damage).