What level is this encounter?

[Tvtyrant]

An attempt at making a reasonable army for an empire. The following is the base unit of the professional army, a Patrol. I don't want the official ECL so much as I want to know how difficult the encounter would really be.

1 War Elephant (with barding) and a single rider (level 3-5 expert with maxed Handle Animal.)
10 Horsemen (level 2-3 Warriors) equipped with lances.
30 Infantry (level 1-2 Warriors) equipped with slings or crossbows.

Infantry fan out and shoot at the party, elephant tramples while cavalry make charge attacks.

[Invader]

http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/

[RFLS]

http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/

Yeaaaah....that's not gonna help. Encounter calculators tend to get thrown out of whack when it comes to large numbers of mooks. I'd say that's about a CR 9-10.

[FleshrakerAbuse]

That seems about right, but most level 6-7 characters would also easily mop up the level 1-3 warriors. They really don't provide that much of a challenge at high levels. The elephant will be the hardest, but then it's only slightly challenging for 6-7th level too.
Depends on the formation of the party. At mid levels, large groups of mooks seem too easy for most groups with a decent caster. I'd say it's better to have less of the low-level warriors (who are only CR 1/3 or so each) and have some decent rangers or scouts as infantry and fighters or knights as cavalry. Otherwise, the group will easily ignore most of the infantry and slay the elephant, rendering the rest useless.

[Invader]

Yeaaaah....that's not gonna help. Encounter calculators tend to get thrown out of whack when it comes to large numbers of mooks. I'd say that's about a CR 9-10.

I don't know, without the elephant it says a cr 12 that's not a terrible ball park plus it shows the OP its out there :smallsmile:

What's worse for encounter calculators by far is the level of optimization of the party.

[Tvtyrant]

That seems about right, but most level 6-7 characters would also easily mop up the level 1-3 warriors. They really don't provide that much of a challenge at high levels. The elephant will be the hardest, but then it's only slightly challenging for 6-7th level too.
Depends on the formation of the party. At mid levels, large groups of mooks seem too easy for most groups with a decent caster. I'd say it's better to have less of the low-level warriors (who are only CR 1/3 or so each) and have some decent rangers or scouts as infantry and fighters or knights as cavalry. Otherwise, the group will easily ignore most of the infantry and slay the elephant, rendering the rest useless.

Say it was an E6 world, so the party effectively tops out at level 6. Would the level 1-3 warriors still be rendered useless?

[Keld Denar]

Depends on their feats. A level 2 human fighter gets 4 feats. Mounted Combat + Rideby Attack + Spirited Charge + Power Attack with a lance can bring some pain, even at level 2. If they are spread out enough and can all charge 1-2 characters, those characters will probably die even if they are level 7-8.

If, however, they took Weapon Focus: Scimitar and other non-multiplicative feats, then it would probably be find for a group of level 6s, assuming they had the option of retreating to a copse of trees or similar more fortifiable area than a wide open plains where they have to defend from all angles.

[ddude987]

I would agree the cr would be somewhere between 9-10 however you have to keep in mind cr does not take into account for optomization. A low op party might have trouble here while a high op party certainly wouldn't.

Also I believe if the level 1 soldiers will be to ineffective you can do things like aiding another in combat or maybe treat them as a 30 person mob? I know for war I often treat opposing armies in battles as mobs mostly to cut down on rolling but also because level 1s don't hit higher level people with expensive gear and better stats.