How many enemies per round for this party?

[Sniccups]

I run a game with a party of 4 characters who are currently all 4th level. However, one of them is going to be out of the fight in question, so effectively it's a party of 3 level 4 characters.

I want to run a fight where they are attacked by many small enemies (CR 1/8) with more appearing every round or every 2 rounds. This is probably going to continue for at least 5 or 6 rounds.

The characters are:
-An Ancients paladin who is the only party member with any healing abilities. His most important combat statistic is probably his 19 AC, and he fights with a longsword.
-A swashbuckler rogue who is a member of a homebrew race specializing in being faster than everyone else, with not many other abilities. This has the effect that she is quite overpowered in single monster fights due to never being in melee range on the monster's turn, but in a fight against many small monsters she will probably not be very useful.
-A wizard (transmuter) whose main combat spells are magic missile and dragon's breath. These will likely be very useful due to the ability to target many opponents.

No, it's not a particularly optimized party, especially missing its fourth member (a warlock of the Archfey, who cannot appear in this battle due to plot reasons)

How many enemies do you think would be an appropriate number each round?

EDIT: I meant to post this in the 5e subforum. Is it possible to move it?

[Mike Miller]

What system? This sounds like it should be in a different subforum.

[Galithar]

What system? This sounds like it should be in a different subforum.

Looks very much like 5e to me. I'd report your post and ask for it to be moved to the appropriate subforum. You'll get better results.

What you should do though it's determine the HP of your mobs and compare it to your party's average DPR and calculate how many they can kill per round.

If you post everyone's to-hit, attack stats, weapon, and the enemies AC and health I can hello you calculate this.

Then I would add one more then they are expected to kill each round. That way when they stop coming they have to clean up and the numbers will slowly build making them feel on edge/overwhelmed without really being much of a true threat.

[HouseRules]

Clearly, it cannot be 4E since you cannot fight monsters of different Level.

3E: 8 monsters is EL 1, 8 Monsters in Rounds 1, 3, and 5.
Total Experience ~ EL 4, but since the monsters comes in rounds, it is the EL 1 in difficulty for a party of 4 (EL 2 for a party of 3).

5E: Not sure how EL scales without the looking up the XP chart.
5 monsters in rounds 1, 3, 5.

-----------------------------------------------
3E: 4 Monsters every round for 6 rounds.
5E: 3 Monsters every round for 5 rounds.

[Zhorn]

Another question would be is this meant as a static fight or and a mobile encounter?

I recently ran a chase scene for one of my players to get them some catchup XP for missing an earlier session (lv 3 monk).
Over the course of the encounter I had about 16 twig blights in total, 8 on the map at any one time, and 4 within range of the PC on most turns.
Didn't tell them it was meant to be a chase, just telegraphed it with how the blights were moving on the map, showing them attempting to corner the PC and block off escape routes. They caught on pretty quick that while they could easily take out 1 per turn (2 if one attack was a crit), they couldn't hope to survive being surrounded and grappled by multiple opponents.
And so the chase was on. They got to fight a lot more opponents over the encounter than they could have in a static fight, adding in enemies in waves fit pretty well as each building in the ruins had a random number of blights pour out of as they ran past. They lived, got a good chunk of xp, and are now thoroughly afraid of being in forested ruin alone.

[HouseRules]

You know, a very high Challenge Rating Creature could still give a low Encounter Level in a social setting. Cross-Class opposition skill checks. Creatures could be "2X+3" HD for an appropriate social/skill check challenge.

[Sniccups]

I'm very sorry, this was meant to be posted in the 5e subforum. Is there any way for this to be moved?

[Galithar]

I'm very sorry, this was meant to be posted in the 5e subforum. Is there any way for this to be moved?

Report your original post and ask for it to be moved.

[Sniccups]

Report your original post and ask for it to be moved.

Thank you!

[Jay R]

Scale it round by round. They first face the scouts -- perhaps just four or five.

Then adjust who shows up each round by how many they have killed.

The ideal number for maximal suspense / challenge / fun is just enough that they believe they're going to die, but not quite enough to kill them.

What the players want today is a quick, easy, safe victory. But what they will want tomorrow is to have brilliantly and bravely turned the tables to barely survive a deadly encounter.