Splitting the party, but giving backup - how to balance this.

[Finback]

I'm working on part of my larger storyline, where the PCs will end up inside a town/fort that is going to be besieged by gnolls. My intention is to split the party into either smaller pairs, or singular - with backup from the existing militia.

But how to balance it? I'm going to give the PCs control of the militia, so they can order them to fire their crossbows, engage, etc. and make the dice rolls for them, but how do I get the numbers right so it's neither a rout nor a bloodbath.

Is a CR 1/2 soldier equivalent to a CR 1/2 gnoll, and thus cancelling each other out? Would a level 5 PC, with six troops (let's say CR 1/2 each), be equal to a small band of gnolls with a total of CR 4? How does one figure out the PCs' CR, so to speak?

[Erys]

I would recommend not splitting the party and letting them command squads, simply because it will cause combat to slow to a drunken slugs pace.

When I do encounters like this, I tend to have strategic points in the keep/castle/base, whatever, that the PCs need to defend (the reason they are split). Yes, they get guards to help them, but they are largely just scenery for most the fight. Have X militia and X Gnolls more or less balanced out, taking some from each side and making some choice moves round to round, while the PC's fight their respective solo/duo encounter (which are the 'remaining' Gnolls that attack the location, be it normal ones or special).

YMMV, and such approaches get better with experience.

Bonus: If you want the guards to have a chance to help the PC's, or even get swarmed by the enemy Gnolls, each you can just roll a d20 for each guards v a d20 for each Gnoll. Go down the line in pairs probably every other or every 3rd round, winning roll kills losing roll. Adjust the mat to show guards/Gnolls adjusting to the deaths while the PC's focus on their particular fight, rinse and repeat.

This allows the map to show a flow of combat, while not over burdening you, the DM, with endless book keeping and rolling.

[CaptainSarathai]

There's an UA article for massed combat rules. Seems to be what you're looking for.

Otherwise, I strongly advise against splitting the party. As a DM I hate doing it. As a player, I feel very dirty doing it.
My current DM is very new and he just allowed me to split our party when my character made the quick decision to not "blow cover" when the rest of the party did, so that enemy couldn't make a clean escape. He then moved my character (via airship) 48hrs away, over water, and made it nearly impossible for me to escape the situation. We spent the last hour of the session role-playing my character trying to determine how he's going to get out of a very secure compound without getting killed. The rest of the party just sat there, bored.

[Finback]

My intent is to get them to think outside the normal box of the team, and to tailor each fight such that it's letting them highlight their own particular skills and abilities - they hit level 5, but barely ever use any of the new features for their classes. So my goal is to get them to try new things, give them a sense of being confronted on all fronts, and then reunite them as a team for a final battle. I'm really trying to evoke a frontier battle, where the heroes are assigned to the areas they would be most of use in.

I'm also going to give them the time between our games to look at a map of this fort/town, to plan out defences - they will be able to decide where to set up blockades (eg to force the gnolls to come down a laneway where archers can snipe them), where ambushes might come from, etc.

I may go with the idea of the balance between soldiers and gnolls being roughly 1 to 1, and allow them to pepper the battle field with their own actions here and there - I might do a randomised system where for each pair, I roll a d6, and on a 5 or 6, one of the pair goes down, and adjust hit points on the fly based on that.

I have the "final" battle component planned out (with a priest of Yeenoghu, war band leader, generic mooks, and some elites) which will come into play while the troops they control of, are embroiled in a main assault elsewhere.

[djreynolds]

It could be fun.

What the heck are the paladin and cleric to do out in the woods?

The fighter and barbarian go off together thinking they are going to fight but instead have to deceive a dragon.

The wizard and sorcerer think they getting infantry, but they get bowman or they have to defend the gates.

Take them out of their element/safe zone... it will be fun. But don't make it to dangerous and it will be fun

[Finback]

Take them out of their element/safe zone... it will be fun. But don't make it to dangerous and it will be fun

That's where I'm trying to get it to go. One of the components will be having the ranger discover that there is an "advisor" to the gnolls who wants the cleric taken alive - and they're the same atypical race (which noone had ever seen before the cleric showed up*). This then sets up a race where the ranger has to try to get back to the cleric before she can get captured for ransom.




* khajit. This was before tabaxi showed up, and my player desperately wanted a cat person, and I found it online and thought it balanced enough.

[djreynolds]

Or even better... make the cleric instead who has to save the ranger

[LudicSavant]

I'm working on part of my larger storyline, where the PCs will end up inside a town/fort that is going to be besieged by gnolls. My intention is to split the party into either smaller pairs, or singular - with backup from the existing militia.

But how to balance it? I'm going to give the PCs control of the militia, so they can order them to fire their crossbows, engage, etc. and make the dice rolls for them, but how do I get the numbers right so it's neither a rout nor a bloodbath.

Is a CR 1/2 soldier equivalent to a CR 1/2 gnoll, and thus cancelling each other out? Would a level 5 PC, with six troops (let's say CR 1/2 each), be equal to a small band of gnolls with a total of CR 4? How does one figure out the PCs' CR, so to speak?

A freshly rested, well-played level 5 PC can potentially solo a band of gnolls with a total CR of 4.

Keep in mind that DMG guidelines say that you can reasonably expect to take on 6-8 CR 3 encounters per day as a lone level 5 character. (A group of 4 can expect to take on 6-8 CR 8 encounters per day)

Six CR1/2 troops have a total encounter Challenge Rating of 4 themselves, and thus would make the gnolls a pushover.

For more information, see page 84 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

[Demonslayer666]

Splitting the party usually results in players sitting around not doing anything for an hour at a time. I would recommend keeping them together and design specific encounters for them to do as a group. I would also recommend not relying on the rules to determine the outcome of gnolls vs. militia, just describe it as an overwhelming force that the militia is sure to lose unless the party helps out. Have the degree of success that the party completes it's challenges be the determining factor on how well the militia/town survive.

planning, Reinforce troops, repair/barricade a wall, push back an advance, fight the cave troll, fight the gnoll war-leader and his band of elite guards.

[Finback]

Splitting the party usually results in players sitting around not doing anything for an hour at a time. I would recommend keeping them together and design specific encounters for them to do as a group. I would also recommend not relying on the rules to determine the outcome of gnolls vs. militia, just describe it as an overwhelming force that the militia is sure to lose unless the party helps out. Have the degree of success that the party completes it's challenges be the determining factor on how well the militia/town survive.

planning, Reinforce troops, repair/barricade a wall, push back an advance, fight the cave troll, fight the gnoll war-leader and his band of elite guards.

I'm thinking of running it all simultaneously - that is, it's one big combat, but we jump from "scene to scene" - the cleric in the field hospital, the bard on the walls, the ranger in the forest outside the fort, etc. That way, noone is missing their turn or waiting too long, and it feels a bit more cinematic - it even allows for actions taken in one "scene" to impact on another - eg if a wizard (our wizard has been on a hiatus, sadly) casts a big fireball wiping out a bunch of gnolls, the next player will see that huge flare, hear a big explosion, and it may change how their gnolls respond.

You're right in that I should also consider it in that style of success/failure and how that impacts on the greater battle. Maybe I can have each "scene" have a goal - if that goal is met in the smaller combat scene, it impacts on the "final" battle, which will really be basically a normal encounter, just with background extras running and battling.

[Demonslayer666]

I do love big battle scenes. Let us know how it turns out!