Running a Large Encounter: What do you think?

[blackjack50]

I am DMing a game. Due to circumstances, my level 2 players are attacking a much larger force (5 PCs and 3 friendly NPCs) vs 100 or so enemies. I don’t hate skill check combat. It is fine usually, but I want my players to actually get a chance to fight with their characters too. And the ambush my players laid is particularly clever (it looks like something out of a military field manual and totally surprised me as the DM…even if I did leave a bit of “mining explosives” laying around).

So here is what I decided to do.
1) I rolled 4 d20 to decide how many enemies are killed in the initial explosion of the ambush. I tend to “pre roll” and in this case the number is 63 (good roll and given the spacing and effort they put in? Seems totally fair).
2) I already have the enemies broken down into 4 categories (weak x20 1hp minion kobolds, x10 standards kobolds, x5 kobold inventors, and x2 kobold sorcerer casters). Players also succeeded on stealth checks and all that too.

The weak and standard kobolds are basically just going to be worried about fleeing. The other inventors are going to be pillaging. And the sorcerers are going to be trying to get order out of chaos.

3) Give the players the surprise round because they have earned it. Then have them roll initiative.

Do y’all like this idea? Part of the reason the kobolds are already in flight is that they were attacked by something else already. Players didn’t investigate this and don’t know. So the scattering Kobolds makes sense and players decided to attack them rather than letting them run by (they didn’t know that would happen).

[Christew]

Sounds like a fun encounter! Some thoughts:
- I think the chaos/confusion among the kobolds will be key. And totally justified -- already in flight and 3/4 of their force just got sploded? Tough ask for the commanders to get anything done.
- Level 2 characters can be quite fragile and bad at spreading damage around, I would be wary of the kobolds getting coordinated to any real degree. It'll take several turns to put down that many mobs in the best case scenario and that many (even weak) attacks could turn quite deadly from sheer probability.
- I'd say your task is in threading the needle between kobolds running around like chickens with their heads cut off while they are eventually picked off (boring) and the kobolds bringing there numbers to bear in a coordinated fashion (deadly). Best of luck, love to hear how it goes!

[Sorinth]

I would describe the 1-hp Kobolds as looking hurt. They are covered in dust and bleeding from various cuts and scratches, these are basically the ones hit by the explosion but didn't die. Similarly I would maybe split the inventors into two groups, one at full HP, and one damaged at half HP. The leaders (Presumably the sorcerers) could spend their action trying to rally these hurt kobolds, maybe something like they can rally 1 inventor or 1d4 regular kobolds as their action. Even after rallied they probably have to spend a full turn moving into position before they can attack.

So once the PCs are visibly attacking, the unhurt kobolds will move to engage the PCs while the Sorcerers try to rally the survivors. Targetting the Sorcerers might interrupt their attempts to rally the hurt kobolds, and attacking the hurt ones should get nearby hurt ones to flee and not be rally-able.


Also technically you roll initiative before the surprise round, and anyone surprised (All the kobolds) can't do anything on that first turn. Basically the only difference is they can start to use their reaction after their turn has gone.

[firelistener]

I think you'll definitely want to use swarms, probably groups of 5, for the weaker varieties of kobold. Or even better, use the UA mass combat rules:
https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/d...at_MCUA_v1.pdf

Also, I wanted to point something out on your pre-rolled explosion casualties. 4d20 is highly variable, with a range from 4 to 80. That may have been what you were going for in this case, but if you want a more predictable set of outcomes in the future, you can lower the top value of the die use and increase the number of dice. This is particularly more useful if you don't want to or can't pre-roll things like this. I apologize if I'm pointing out something you already know; I figured it might be helpful for other DMs reading the thread.

[Ionathus]

When running large-scale encounters in 5e, I have a gamemode switch keeping track in my head at all times. The players are always either in Macro mode, or Micro mode.

I run Macro mode like a Colville-style skill challenge roll: a player proposes a big-picture action they want to take to alter the large-scale course of battle, I determine what success and failure will look like, and I have them roll the appropriate check. If they want to spend resources (spell slots, short/long-rest abilities, consumable items), they can get advantage on the roll or even auto-pass it depending on resource value. You can abstract multiple rounds, minutes, even hours with a single check like this.

I run Micro mode like a standard combat encounter: a reasonable number of combatants on either side, in a fight that I think won't bog down the session. If the players engage the first 12 kobolds (getting a mix of peons, lieutenants, and commanders/elite troops most times), then those are the 12 they fight. If they take too long, more will show up. Or maybe the PCs will retreat. These are the big, important moments of a longer battle -- the points in time where 6 skilled people hitting the right spot can make all the difference.

Whenever appropriate, I flip that switch to move the game from Micro scale to Macro scale, or vice versa. "You just killed those 12, but now the others are reforming. Big picture time: what do you do?"

The trick is to balance that narrative push and pull of watching the entire horde swarm and rush forward, while also showing the close-ups of your players in hand-to-hand combat. Feel free to play a little faster and looser with the encounter and movement rules (but never to the players' detriment), or even draw hard lines in the sand to keep the battle moving: "The entire army is charging for you: there's no way you can fight them all. Where do you retreat to, or do you have a clever idea to break the charge?"

Battles between large armies are about opaque tactics and obedient soldiers grinding each other down via attrition: that's not PC gameplay. PCs are not soldiers in a platoon – they're an elite strike force, and they need to be allowed to behave like one: moving quickly, changing tactics, hitting the key moments of a big battle. Unless the players have a chokepoint to guard, I have never been able to make a battle on a single section of map interesting for longer than a dozen or so enemies. So I've stopped trying, and instead narrate & abstract everything except the most crucial moments & fights.