Dealing with large numbers of enemies...

[kentma57]

In a game I am working on the PC could end up fighting fighting a force of easily 100-200 opponents, while this is underground in coridor combat(that in my oppinion gives the advantage to the PC's because it limits how many enemies they have to fight at one) I am not sure how to guage the difficulty in the combat.

In the enemies favor:
-the majority of the force is 3rd-4th level fighters, with ocational 5th-6th catsers
-the force is lead by a 8th level character
-they are designed/trained for tunnel fighting
-they are on guard so they are expecting combat

In the PC's favor:
-the PC's are 12th level
-tunnels constric enemies movments(to an extent)
-they are initiating combat with time to prepare
-they are build knowing what they are walking into

Online calculators list this as an 18+ encounter as the number of opponents changes but is it realy that challenging? Now this is the second encounter of the game, so they should not be to worn out, I just in doubt that the encounter is as difficult as the calcualtors would make it seem.

Any suggestions on how to guage this type of endurance encounter.

[sadi]

Are you planning on running round by round and there being absolutely no time for the players to regroup and cast spells? If the party has time to fall back and spend several minutes healing/rebuffing I'd definitely consider that a new encounter.

Is it one huge mass of troops wandering around or will they be split into smaller groups, yet again, if the party encounters a small chunk and takes them out instantly, that's a different encounter.

[Xefas]

It'd help if you listed what the players' classes were. Some classes are better for endurance battles than others.

Also, how good your players are at planning. What resources they have available, and so on.

It also matters how intelligently you're going to be playing the attacking force. If the fighters serve as nothing but fodder to get between the players' attacks and their caster allies, and the casters use exclusively Ranged Touch Attack, or Metamagiced Magic Missile stuff all as readied actions to be used at the same time against the visibly most vulnerable character, then they have a pretty good chance of wearing down the players. (i.e. a block of 10 casters [level 5] all drop out of their invisibility and cast Magic Missile dealing 30d4+30 damage on the same action to the Rogue's d6 hit die without a save or attack roll from over 150 feet away with 100 Mooks with Tower Shields [doesn't matter if they're proficient or not] just taking total defense actions trying to slow you down)

[Lycan 01]

Have each player roll a few d6. The number they roll is the number of mooks they kill as they carve a path through the sea of nameless cannon fodder. Only have them actively fight the "important" baddies, and maybe lose a few HP per turn to "lucky shots" and various things.

That's how I'd do it, at least...

[Olo Demonsbane]

If they are BUILT to face it? They can do it.

Dragonfire Adept can take down many enemies each turn, and can keep going indefinitely. It can also fly, cause fear in its opponents, and wear full plate.

Dread Necromancer can create an army almost as large as the other side, or a smaller one that is much stronger. My 12th level DN had 16 Marliths and a Zombie Adult Red Dragon under his control just using Animate Dead. He could control undead as a 36th level cleric to boot.


Those are just two quick examples.

Kinda off topic, sorry.

The difficulty of the encounter depends on how well you run the enemies. Run them like Tucker's Kobolds, and your players will die. Send the enemies in small waves? Piece of cake.

[awa]

This depending on the abilities of the characters may be any where from very easy to very hard. a cloud kill will kill most of the low level enemies with one cast cr is not just about what it says on the monster your supposed to modify it based on the situation, and adding lots of low level monster particularly against casters with large numbers of powerful area effect abilities dosent really affect the difficulty of the encounter.

[sadi]

Since the players are the ones initiating it, and therefore have home field. The level 3s and 4s are basically irrelevant to the encounter depending on how you play it. Do they have scouts out front with see invisible, or are they charging blindly. One increases the difficulty, the other reduces the level significantly.

[kentma57]

Are you planning on running round by round and there being absolutely no time for the players to regroup and cast spells? If the party has time to fall back and spend several minutes healing/rebuffing I'd definitely consider that a new encounter.

Is it one huge mass of troops wandering around or will they be split into smaller groups, yet again, if the party encounters a small chunk and takes them out instantly, that's a different encounter.

Well the troops are a standing force meant to guard the main entrance to a dwarven city, they have several areas that they can make defesive stands before the PC's can make it into the main city(where the combat slows but becomes more dangerous as the dwarves are able to muster stronger opponents from inside the city) due to the size of the force they won't have to fight the entire thing at once, and if they suffer to many losses the troops will fall back to restage a defence.

This all assumes they decide that a frontal assault is they best plan they can come up with.

Since the players are the ones initiating it, and therefore have home field. The level 3s and 4s are basically irrelevant to the encounter depending on how you play it. Do they have scouts out front with see invisible, or are they charging blindly. One increases the difficulty, the other reduces the level significantly.

Strategy, will make all the difference here.
The 3rd-4th will not be totaly irrelivant though shield/formation fighting, with long-spears behind them, and crossbow/casters in the back...
They should pack a punch.

[sadi]

I thought you meant the players were the defenders. If they're the invaders, the level 3s and 4s are still irrelevent, but if the defenders use traps and lots of them since it is a static position, I'm sure they'd have lots. The players should be in for a challenge. Most enemy casters will be able to get off a round of spells before someone triggers a cave in (or something like that) forcing the players to either come up with a way to clear the path or have to find another path in. Cheap hit and run tactics like that will actually make the whole encounter more challenging than just random slaughter. 1 level 8 and 8-10 5s and 6s should be an encounter 12 or so. Depending on if you go for damaging traps up a bit.

If the party tries brute force to enter, they should take heavy damage, both in used spells, used magic items and actual damage. But awarding the players extra experience for brute force probably isn't the way to go.


Formations are the worst thing you could do really, its just crowding bodies into a confined space for a large boom to go off. Formations are at the end when you have no where to retreat to. Depending on how long of tunnels you plan on using. I'd expect 3-5 dead per skirmish, lots of hit and run, a few valiant sacrifices to let the casters escape.

[kentma57]

Formations are the worst thing you could do really, its just crowding bodies into a confined space for a large boom to go off. Formations are at the end when you have no where to retreat to. Depending on how long of tunnels you plan on using. I'd expect 3-5 dead per skirmish, lots of hit and run, a few valiant sacrifices to let the casters escape.

I know formations are constantly listed as bad ideas, but there are things that need to be considered. Like; how many spells can you waist that early in the game, what persentage of real armies are made up of casters devoted to AOE spells, many arrmies employ a wizard or to specialized in anti-magic...

And a few other trick I have up my sleeve.

[Flickerdart]

The Wizard simply summons anything with a Fear aura or similar ability. Most of your army is too low-level to save with any reliability and runs away. The rest of the army routs because of lowered morale. End. A 6th level caster can't threaten a 12th level character pretty much at all. What, you have Slow and Haste? Slow needs a save, Haste on your mooks is worthless. At 6th level, all they can do is basic Dispel Magic, which will fail because their CL is far too low. Their AOE will have low enough reflex saves to only deal half-damage ever, and their Fireballs (6d6, 21 average, 10 halved) are not going to phase the people with hundreds of hit points. The 12th level characters also have Globe of Invulnerability, meaning your casters can do all of nothing to stop them. Acid Fog, Cloudkill and similar spells only need one casting, and will take out enormous amounts of people. Mass Suggestion and Symbol of Persuasion mean that another chunk of men is going to be on their side, so kill your casters goodbye since everyone else is useless. Even Chain Lightning is going to kill 13 people a cast pretty much for sure. Circle of Death and Symbol of Fear destroy your army utterly. Move Earth traps the army in the tunnels. And this is just Core Arcane spells.
Remember that they'll have Rope Trick shenanigans, so you can't really hope to wear them out, and they can Teleport to safety and back. Played smartly, the casters should only be down a handful of spells when the army routs, and the melee types a few hit points. You could, I suppose, put a caged beast of a CR that matters in the end, to make it actually challenging.

[awa]

With out knowing what your players are or what they can do severely limits any advice we can give you. Formations would work great on rouges and fighters with out cleave less well against any one with area effect abilities.

[Flickerdart]

Formations of low-level punks don't do anything even to a basic Fighter. His AC will be too high to hit, his HP too high to reasonably dent, and he can kill pretty much every turn without anyone stopping him. A Rogue would have more trouble, but then they can just sneak by the enemies, disable the casters and move on.

[kentma57]

The Wizard simply summons anything with a Fear aura or similar ability. Most of your army is too low-level to save with any reliability and runs away. The rest of the army routs because of lowered morale. End. A 6th level caster can't threaten a 12th level character pretty much at all. What, you have Slow and Haste? Slow needs a save, Haste on your mooks is worthless. At 6th level, all they can do is basic Dispel Magic, which will fail because their CL is far too low. Their AOE will have low enough reflex saves to only deal half-damage ever, and their Fireballs (6d6, 21 average, 10 halved) are not going to phase the people with hundreds of hit points. The 12th level characters also have Globe of Invulnerability, meaning your casters can do all of nothing to stop them. Acid Fog, Cloudkill and similar spells only need one casting, and will take out enormous amounts of people. Mass Suggestion and Symbol of Persuasion mean that another chunk of men is going to be on their side, so kill your casters goodbye since everyone else is useless. Even Chain Lightning is going to kill 13 people a cast pretty much for sure. Circle of Death and Symbol of Fear destroy your army utterly. Move Earth traps the army in the tunnels. And this is just Core Arcane spells.
Remember that they'll have Rope Trick shenanigans, so you can't really hope to wear them out, and they can Teleport to safety and back. Played smartly, the casters should only be down a handful of spells when the army routs, and the melee types a few hit points. You could, I suppose, put a caged beast of a CR that matters in the end, to make it actually challenging.

[Sarcasm]Right because magic and spells are things the heavily defended dwarven keep has never encountered before.[/Sarcasm]

Look I know that they will slice and dice most of the troops, then again most of them are cannon foder anyways. In the end it's all part of the experience where is the fun in busting down the gates to a dwarven keep only to find that they have scrapped their army in favor of 4 or 5 wizards.
No, the blood-bath and feeling of victory as your enemies ranks break is part of the game. The trick is to give the mooks the ability to fight back, make the PC's watch their step. If they play it right they should be fine but otherwise...

[its_all_ogre]

you may not like this but...
give the mooks some form of assistance ability. similar to aid another in combat.
firstly front line should be sword and board warriors
second line using reach weapons.
the second line and front line can gang up on an melee attacker using aid another from multiple mooks each giving +2 to hit.
RF
RFP
RF

(R=reach armed mook F=front line mook P=pc)
in that position 6 mooks can reach pc so either 3 attacks at +2 to hit or 2 attacks at +4 to hit.
they should have the following feats: weapon focus with mwk weapons, toughness or similar. no point boosting their defences as they'll still get hit, but boosting their accuracy and hps should make them last a bit longer.

alternatively go with a 4e slant, give them all a big bonus to hit but they die in one hit that does decent damage(your choice what this is)
suddenly just charging in will hurt a lot.

(i think this guy wants advise on running the combat, not advice on how to make it challenging)
do you use minis or counters or something?
alternatively treat the force like a swarm, describe enemies falling all around, but the rest keep fighting on. keep a hp pool and once it is below half describe some of them fleeing before the pc's and once it reaches zero they break and run for cover.
regrouping of course

[Johel]

How to decimate an army in 2 hours with a 12th level wizard/sorcerer :

Spoiler

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6th Level Spell
Disintegrate
Ruthlessness is the answer to most problem
Veil
12 hours to transform you and your comerades in dwarven ?
"Symbol of Persuasion on my staff"
For those dwarven who made their first Will save against the Symbol of Sleep. An army of mooks who'll "try to explain to their brothers that it's all a misunderstanding" can be useful. After all, even if people fall asleep left and right, you aren't killing or harming them : it's just your curse. You need to speak to the King about that... Even if it doesn't work, you'll love the confusion it will create
5th Level Spell
Cloudkill
Cast 2 of these behind each other.
As they move forward, it will clear a path in the enemy lines.
Formations mean TPK for the dwarven here.
"Symbol of Sleep on my staff"
If something stand in your way after the "Mustard Gaz Attack", this should get things done. Rules of trigger : someone has to touch the rune on the staff. You touch it and are now a walking soporific grenade for about 2 hours. The rest of the party mops up the sleepers.
Teleport
If things get way too messy for your taste.
4th Level Spell
Stoneskin
Basic physical protection for the next 2 hours.
Resilient Sphere
Ultimate protection against anything below 10th level if things get messy for you but that you think your allies can handle it in 12 rounds. Can be followed by a teleportation if said allies fail to handle the threath.
3rd Level Spell
Protection from Energy
Dwarven spellcasters are probably clerics and the likes. Not the best blasters but you want some protection, still. 2 hours duration.
Stinking Cloud
Not that good but useful to break counter-attacks.
Dispel Magic
Just in case... Having a wand of Dispel Magic is the must.
Fireball
Not worth it as a spell. Strongly concider the wand.
2nd Level Spell
Knock
To open those blasted stony doors the dwarven like to make.
Dark Vision
It's a dwarf fortress, right ?
See Invisibility
They aren't dueguars but who knows ?
1st Level
Detect Secret Doors
and knock them open
Charm Person
Combine with Veil
Mage Armor
+4 AC, 12 hours duration.
Shield
+4 AC, if things get hot. 12 minutes duration.

How to resist to the "4 Apocalypse Ridders" with your army :

Spoiler

Show

DISPEL, DISPEL, DISPEL !!
That's a spell your casters must have if they can afford it.
Targetted dispels if you can.
Chances are it won't work most of the time but to debuff the enemy spellcasters (and prevent them to cast) is your main goal, here.
Just keep trying.
No formation against casters
While formations CAN be useful against fighter-type enemies, they are just plain suicide against spellcasters. A fighter will see 20 enemies. A wizard will see a chance to score a "bowling strike".
Grapplers and Trippers
3rd level fighters have the feats to get good at that.
Whatever the level of a creature is, its strength and dexterity don't increase much. Even if it costs you ten men per turn per target to do so, you must make these high-level adventurers fall prone and prevent casting. RP-wise, dwarven would use this tactic only after the initial slaughter but still...
Darkness is your friend
Dwarven get darkvision for free.
Wizards can get it too.
But both ways, it doesn't allow to see very far.
You know your fortress, the enemy probably don't.
Switch the light off.
Unless wizards are ready to cast darkvision on all party members, this should give you an edge.
Traps
It can slow down enemies.
It frees manpower.
Magical traps can be dead-broken if auto-reload.
Don't trust anybody
Adventurers aren't loyal stupid paladins (some are but they aren't the ones who attack dwarven). They are sneaky bastards and will use underhanded tactics such as mind tricks, disguises and such. Just make it clear to all troops that strict discipline must be followed and that anybody or anything out of place must be concidered hostile. That's it, no 4-men patrol walking aimlessly around, no dwarf with an important message for the king. People must be able to state their unit, their commanding officer and their post...and slain on the spot if they can't or if they don't get a very good reason to not be at their post !!

[its_all_ogre]

dwarves who know they're under assault might hire mercenaries right?
so maybe they'll hire some not particularly anticipated mercs to help.

other stuff they can have is intelligent "traps" like carnivorous plants that a daring dwarf druid installed that have since learnt not to attack dwarfs.
assassin vine grown by the dwarves to significant size could be an ideal enemy.

dwarves drive pc's towards this place by weight of numbers and you have a fine final fight.

big chamber dominated by some weird underground creeper plant that attacks pc's but leaves dwarves alone. this creature is resistant to quite a few damage sources, has reach so can bypass melee warriors to target spellcasters(maybe it was taught to do just this?)
meanwhile dwarves pour into the room from the many entrances and attack the pc's hampering their ability to focus fire on the plant monster.(i have an advanced assasin vine fully stated out pm if you want it)

other options could be an extended tunnel below the main ones which is accessible via hidden, very well hidden, pit traps. down there is a rather large and always hungry gelatinous cube...the've kept it well fed over the years and now it is about to earn it's keep!(btw i have a fully advanced one all the way up to 40HD if you need it just pm me) obviously these tunnels have been warded by dimensional anchor so no flying or teleporting the only ways out are two or three ladders.
once in an alarm alerts the dwarfs and a squad can get to each of these exits with a grease casting spell user for the ladder or just lots of big heavy objects to drop on climbing pcs.

an advanced tendriculous would work well too. regen stopped only byt acid or bludgeoning damage(not often used by optimisers ime) don't have one of these though in my notes.

if merc spellcasters are possible then make them sorcerers with the following spells: grease(too good not to) magic missile if enough casters(auto hit makes this useful. 10 sorcerer 5's suddenly do 30d4+30 damage) true strike could be handy depending, ray of enfeeble is a definite, glitterdust, summon swarm could be useful, web.
or a psion/wilder with astral construct power. use this as a blockage rather than real melee capability. even an udoroot psionic plant could work well.

more standard but uncommon mercs could be aranea, the spider things that are naturally spellcasters. chuul could be entertaining, int 10 so possible.

but if you just wanted ideas of how to run it i'd run it more as a narrative with a few set piece battles were tactics become important.

[kentma57]

you may not like this but...
give the mooks some form of assistance ability. similar to aid another in combat.
firstly front line should be sword and board warriors
second line using reach weapons.
the second line and front line can gang up on an melee attacker using aid another from multiple mooks each giving +2 to hit.
RF
RFP
RF

(R=reach armed mook F=front line mook P=pc)
in that position 6 mooks can reach pc so either 3 attacks at +2 to hit or 2 attacks at +4 to hit.
they should have the following feats: weapon focus with mwk weapons, toughness or similar. no point boosting their defences as they'll still get hit, but boosting their accuracy and hps should make them last a bit longer.

alternatively go with a 4e slant, give them all a big bonus to hit but they die in one hit that does decent damage(your choice what this is)
suddenly just charging in will hurt a lot.

(i think this guy wants advise on running the combat, not advice on how to make it challenging)
do you use minis or counters or something?
alternatively treat the force like a swarm, describe enemies falling all around, but the rest keep fighting on. keep a hp pool and once it is below half describe some of them fleeing before the pc's and once it reaches zero they break and run for cover.
regrouping of course

The formation style fighting you sugested was a major part of my original plan; but I like the swarm idea, would simplify combat.
It's not like I expect the mooks to win, but if the PC's are not careful they should get hurt. That and I am just going to change their tactics depending on how the PC's play so... yeah I'll see where things go.

[awa]

mobs (from dmg2) i believe are normal used to represent lower level characters but still make more sense then swarms

[Epinephrine]

Use the combat rules from Heroes of Battle? Instead of needing to hit ACs, the foes use concentrated volleys, etc. That guarantees damage.

[lsfreak]

For ranged attacks, compare the PC's AC with the mooks' AB and average the number of hits per round, with average damage per hit. For example, 50 mooks with crossbows with an AB of +9 target the tank with an AC of 25, so they each need a 16 or higher to hit. That averages to 12.5 hits with an average damage of 4.5 damage per hit, so the fighter takes 56 damage a round.

[quick_comment]

You cant. The party wizard casts a bunch of cloudkills. The party cleric summons a bralani eladrin. Wind wall stops all the arrows, whirlwind blast decimates the mooks.

[Flickerdart]

For ranged attacks, compare the PC's AC with the mooks' AB and average the number of hits per round, with average damage per hit. For example, 50 mooks with crossbows with an AB of +9 target the tank with an AC of 25, so they each need a 16 or higher to hit. That averages to 12.5 hits with an average damage of 4.5 damage per hit, so the fighter takes 56 damage a round.

That, while sort of reasonable, is inapplicable in the given situation, because they are in caverns as previously discussed, where 50 crossbowmen wouldn't be able to even line up, much less fire.
And what kind of tank has 25 AC by 12th? +2 Full Plate is +10, 12 DEX is +1, Ring or Protection +3 is +3, Amulet of Natural Armor +3 is another +3. This totals 27. He can pick up a shield or some other protective item and make it impossible for the 4th level Fighters (4 BAB, +4 DEX (an 18 on a mook, believe it), Weapon Focus: Crossbow maybe) to hit except on a natural 20. That's 2.5 hits per round, or 11 damage.

[Croverus]

I have maybe 3 things to say (I'll see how ti goes after I finish typing them).

1) What are your players' characters? Listing their race and class will REALLY help with planning.

2) Dwarves. Your players are attacking freggin dwarves. There are 5 things to know abotu how dwarves fight on their home turf. First: They use formations, doesn't matter if they're up against a caster, for dwarves, formations work, because they move the formations around so that when people get injured they are shifted back so that they can be healed up and fresh warriors hold the line for a while. Second: they're solution to casters is not casters... its a hail of crossbow bolts and thrown hammers; have several warriors readying actions to throw hammers or fire crossbows when a caster starts up. Sure he's got enough points in Concentration to save (unless the player is stupid about skills) but he has to save for every attack that hits (even if it does no damage, the DC just doesn't get increased) and the lucky dwarf that gets a critcal could make the caster lose his spell. Third: You said the dwarves know the player's are coming, so they are on their guard, meaning there are probably a hundred security measures that will slow the player's down. Fourth: Since they know that the player's are coming, dwarves will have traps out the yin yang, from collapsing roofs, floor drops, explosive contact wax, watchtowers with plenty of crossbow holes to shoot out of, entire tunnel systems that the dwarves would be willing to cave in (because hell they could repair the damage in a few months time). Fifth: Quality. Dwarves are amazing craftsman. It's not that big of an edge, but just for the hell of it let them all be using masterwork weapons, they need the extra +1 to hit.

3) Terrain - The player's are attacking a dwarven fortress, menaing it is underground, only has light where the dwarves wnat there to be light, has numerous secret passageways that are nearly impossible to find, and is connected at several points to the Underdark(if the underdak exists in your game) which means the players could run into some non-dwarf encounters if they try to sneak in somehow. It also means that the dwarves could be distracted by a random attack from an underdark beasts or drow raiding party. Have fun with this fact.

[Tiki Snakes]

The Pc's should find a huge, obsidian lined cavern coupled with a distant smell of burning. Above the sealed doors of the fortress, there is a sign. Welcome to ****ing boatmurdered.

They hear a lever being thrown.

This is how a dwarf protects his home.

[Draz74]

Dragonfire Adept can take down many enemies each turn, and can keep going indefinitely. It can also fly, and either cause fear in its opponents or wear full plate.

Fixed.

(Some DFAs do have reasons not to wear heavy armor. I.e. any who intend to actually use Invocations in combat. The most prominent of which Invocations are the fear-causing ones.)