I think the discussion re: commoners has plateaued at the conclusion that the PC's could keep going indefinitely until they died of exhaustion levels (if you're tracking those).
However, I like this and don't want it to end just yet, so let's up the ante. I once threw a room of 30 zombies at a party of 6 level 5's and it reminded me a lot of this, so what if instead of commoners we had the same premise but with zombies?
One Meteor Swarm does 40d6 to 160 square feet, and that's probably the entire village. So it's pretty much only going to take one action to level the village, kill all the Commoners, and leave nothing behind but scorched earth, and whatever the Commoners were holding, carrying, or wearing at the time.
That's a reasonable approximation of what it would be like to fight a god. They would pretty much only need to narrow their eyes (Sorcerer, subtle spell) and everyone inside of about 160 square feet that wasn't a god would die instantly.
I think the discussion re: commoners has plateaued at the conclusion that the PC's could keep going indefinitely until they died of exhaustion levels (if you're tracking those).
However, I like this and don't want it to end just yet, so let's up the ante. I once threw a room of 30 zombies at a party of 6 level 5's and it reminded me a lot of this, so what if instead of commoners we had the same premise but with zombies?
Alternatively, what about goblins?
Its all about what effects and attacks are available to the group of creatures. If the creatures have no ranged attack (like zombies) or no magical attacks or spells (like any of these creatures) then their ability to damage a high level PC is very limited, even if they hit on any sort of regular basis (5% is regular, but not often). There are too many variables in magic items and builds to say exactly what the real limiting factor would be, and you will already be hamstringing the party by removing teleportation and other ways to escape to make the scenario valid anyway.
I would say that either of the two alternate creatures you present would have a slightly easier time bringing down a level 20 party as commoners would, but that is mainly due to the damage of their weapons/attacks compared to the d4s the commoner can dish out, and the discussion will still hinge on how magic items and class abilities might change the scenario.
A fighter of any level with Heavy Armour Master, AC20 and Adamantine armour can take only 1 point of damage from any attack that the commoners throw at him. Let's give him 224 hit points, which is average hit points plus 100 from his 20 Constitution.
Assuming that no more than 9 commoners can attack him during any single turn (completely surrounding him), they will score 1 hit every 20 attacks. Of those hits, only 1 in 4 overcomes his Heavy Armour Master feat, so that means they need 80 attacks to inflict 1 point of damage.
Since they have no ranged attack, only 9 commoners can attack him per turn. After 180 attacks, they will have dealt him 9 points of damage, which takes them 20 turns, which is the equivalent of 3 minutes and 12 seconds. A Ring of Regeneration will heal him for 3 (1d6) hit points every 10 minutes, so he'll only take 24 damage every 10 minutes that he fights.
However, if he's an Eldritch Knight, he can cast Blade Ward every turn, whilst still making one melee attack. This gives him resistance to the commoner's bludgeoning damage, meaning that any hit they inflict will be only a maximum of 2 damage, which is then reduced by 3 by Heavy Armour Master. Therefore he is invulnerable and can never be taken down by any number of commoners.
A level 7 Eldritch Knight with 20AC, Heavy Armour Master and Adamantine armour fights forever against any number of commoners. He doesn't need to be anywhere near level 20, and only needs a single magic item.
You could achieve something even lazier with champion's survivor ability, granted only at half HP. Still, you have a fighter that's never going to die to commoners.itll even work in your sleep.
So what do you figure. Multiply that time by 2? 3? Per healer in the group? Not even accounting for healing potions…. Then multiply that time by some amount to account for the party not just standing there getting beat on. (Figure the party needs to be limited to prevent them from running away/hiding forever, but not so limited they just stand their till someone finally manages to hit them.)
I figure if a party could somehow lock down a God for 2-3 days, and spend that entire time continuously fighting it (without dying), they could probably kill the God.
So I think I figured out a better way to get at the “real” question. So I’d argue that a God is to a group of Fully leveled adventurers, as that same group would be to a village full of commoners.
So in a situation where the party is forced to fight villagers till the entire party falls, how long would that take. Assume that the party can never gain the benefits of a full rest (restored spell slots and full healing), and that they can’t cheese the fight to remain forever out of the villager’s range.
I think what you're asking is more like this (which is different to your original question - you specified magic items available, and any half decent fighter has adamantine armour by level 20):
A level 20, Con20, AC20 fighter has an average of 224 hit points.
It takes 20 peasants to attack them and score 1 hit, which will be a critical hit, and will deal an average of 5 (2d4) damage on hit.
224 / 5 = 44.8 hits to knock the fighter unconscious, assuming he doesn't get healed.
The commoners need to make 44.8 x 20 attacks in order to down the fighter - 896 attacks in total.
The fighter can be attacked 9 times per turn, if there is a peasant in every grid square, and every commoner is replaced by a fresh one if they die.
This takes them 896 / 9 = 99.56 turns.
This is the equivalent of 99.56 x 6 = 599.76 seconds.
599.76 / 60 = 9.996 minutes, or 9 minutes and 59.76 seconds - or about as close to 10 minutes as makes no difference.
So there you go. Infinite commoners take down a level 20 fighter with no healing, feats or magic items available after 10 minutes of constant attacking.
Actually, if the commoners are static then 8 (not 9) can attack per turn.
But assuming that the commoners are willing to sacrifice one of themselves every turn, then the PC can be surrounded by a lot more commoners all who step forward to attack on their turn and then retreat - 30 ft movement, subtract 5 ft for each ally they have to pass to get within range to strike the PC. The PC gets to strike back at only one of them with the OA.
So the commoners stand 15 ft back and 10 ft back to allow all to get an attack in - this means 12 standing at 10 ft away and 16 standing at 15 ft away, and none standing within melee range - so 28 attacks in one round against that surrounded PC.
Elsewhere, a broom of flying could be used for those classes that would benefit from an unlimited number of short rests - jump on the broom and fly up out of range for an hour's rest.
So I think I figured out a better way to get at the “real” question. So I’d argue that a God is to a group of Fully leveled adventurers, as that same group would be to a village full of commoners.
So in a situation where the party is forced to fight villagers till the entire party falls, how long would that take. Assume that the party can never gain the benefits of a full rest (restored spell slots and full healing), and that they can’t cheese the fight to remain forever out of the villager’s range.
I think what you're asking is more like this (which is different to your original question - you specified magic items available, and any half decent fighter has adamantine armour by level 20):
A level 20, Con20, AC20 fighter has an average of 224 hit points.
It takes 20 peasants to attack them and score 1 hit, which will be a critical hit, and will deal an average of 5 (2d4) damage on hit.
224 / 5 = 44.8 hits to knock the fighter unconscious, assuming he doesn't get healed.
The commoners need to make 44.8 x 20 attacks in order to down the fighter - 896 attacks in total.
The fighter can be attacked 9 times per turn, if there is a peasant in every grid square, and every commoner is replaced by a fresh one if they die.
This takes them 896 / 9 = 99.56 turns.
This is the equivalent of 99.56 x 6 = 599.76 seconds.
599.76 / 60 = 9.996 minutes, or 9 minutes and 59.76 seconds - or about as close to 10 minutes as makes no difference.
So there you go. Infinite commoners take down a level 20 fighter with no healing, feats or magic items available after 10 minutes of constant attacking.
Actually, if the commoners are static then 8 (not 9) can attack per turn.
But assuming that the commoners are willing to sacrifice one of themselves every turn, then the PC can be surrounded by a lot more commoners all who step forward to attack on their turn and then retreat - 30 ft movement, subtract 5 ft for each ally they have to pass to get within range to strike the PC. The PC gets to strike back at only one of them with the OA.
So the commoners stand 15 ft back and 10 ft back to allow all to get an attack in - this means 12 standing at 10 ft away and 16 standing at 15 ft away, and none standing within melee range - so 28 attacks in one round against that surrounded PC.
Elsewhere, a broom of flying could be used for those classes that would benefit from an unlimited number of short rests - jump on the broom and fly up out of range for an hour's rest.
You're quite right. This also ups the number of casualties that the fighter can inflict by 1 per turn, since he's likely to hit with most of his opportunity attacks, but is largely irrelevant because of the infinite number of commoners.
This means that they need 32 turns in order to bring him down (896 / 28), which is 192 seconds, which is only 3 minutes and 12 seconds.
As said early on unless you restrict them further the party of level 20s can replenish there resources, even if they are a much lower level. Rather than taking out a village I am assumed a "tower defence" type scenario where the commoners / zombies just keep on coming. Having said that things might be a little more open to interpretation against zombies.
Against commoners
An abilty to fly would mean the commoners would not be able to harm the party unless home-brew equiped with a ranged weapon
Spell casters can take out the commoners using cantrips so do not need to use resources to kill the commoners
When they are in danger of exhaustion they can shield themselves from all attacks while they rest
Create a safe area using magnificent mansion or tiny hut
Magnificent mansion is easiest but might be regarded as leaving the area
If the caster is not able to cast tiny hut while being attacked then anti-life shell will keep the commoners at bay while it is cast
Rest to recover spells and any hit points
Once rested resume the battle (possibly casting a teleport spell to gwt back airbourne
Create food and water deals with any issues of running out of rations
While this works with Commoners Zombies can pass through anti-lfe spell so the caster may have trould casting tie hut on the ground this is where the interpretation of the rules comes in:
What happens if tiny hut is cast while in the air are the party able to rest in it (when cast it would remain inthe air but there are differing opinions whether it includes a floor and)
Is magnificent mansion breaking the rules
After that the best tactics of the party relies on extremely likely probabilities to get the hut made. Undead fortitude means to guarante a kill you need radiant so I think the best tactics are 3 clerics casting spiriit guardians at 9th level (surrounding the tiny hut caster) along with sleet storm, the DCs will be high enough that the zombies will auto fail the dex and wis saves so will need to take 3 turns to get to caster even if they dash, taking 27d8 damage. Zombies can have up to 33HP but it is incredibly unlikely that they would survive 3 rounds (chance less than 1 in a trillion)
Once in the hut cast forbidance and after 30 days there is even more damages the zombies get hit with if they enter the area the hut is cast each night.
The original question said that the village would spawn infinite commoners, which makes me imagine this being sort of a tower defense type of deal, where the commoners are spawning every round or so, not that there's an area filled to the brim with commoners... The question wasn't an area containing an infinite amount at once, it's about a village that spawns an infinite amount right.. I feel like there's a significant difference there.
This makes me wonder at what rate the commoners spawn... Yea they are infinite, but if they only spawn 5 or so every round, the part can just kill them as they spawn. Also, can the party stay at a good 90 ft from the spawn location?
If sleep/exhaustion is not a problem: Path of the Zealot Barbarian with Persistant Rage and Rage Beyond Death is literally unstoppable for the commoners.
An attempt to draw a parallel between a group of adventurers fighting a god (god has the advantage), and the same group of adventurers fighting commoners (adventurers have the advantage).
I figure in both cases, the underdog COULD win, but the chances of that are so low as to be functionally impossible.
You have to give the strong side some handicaps. I think it goes without saying that a full party of level 20's are going to cleave through dozens upon dozens of commoners without any real issue. If they are allowed to sleep and recoup their spent health/spell slots, the commoners have no chance. In the same idea that if a God has access to infinite power (or can simply planeshift itself/you away), there is no real reason that they should ever lose.
Yup. That's pretty much it. A god could never lose to a mortal, and a mortal can never become a god in 5th edition D&D, as there are currently no rules for divine ascension.
Because i like the idea of "if you can meet the insanely difficult requirements, you too can accomplish the impossible". Whether that be taking down a group of fully kit'd out max level adventurers as a generic commoner, or killing a literal God. I love the idea that if you can think far enough outside the box (a very mortal trait), even the impossible becomes possible.
But the starting question was asked, because i was trying to figure out if i'm making the Gods too strong or too weak. And rather then flood the board with hundreds of minor "what if's" it was easier to ask an overarching question and "solve" the many creative answers to my question.
Because i like the idea of "if you can meet the insanely difficult requirements, you too can accomplish the impossible". Whether that be taking down a group of fully kit'd out max level adventurers as a generic commoner, or killing a literal God. I love the idea that if you can think far enough outside the box (a very mortal trait), even the impossible becomes possible.
But the starting question was asked, because i was trying to figure out if i'm making the Gods too strong or too weak. And rather then flood the board with hundreds of minor "what if's" it was easier to ask an overarching question and "solve" the many creative answers to my question.
The original question just doesnt work though because the group of level 20s could literally kill the commoners in your scenario forever since you removed exhaustion.
General rule of thumb I use - if I have to alter the rules as much as your attempting to in this scenario, then the whole scenario is a failure on my part and I need to approach creating it in a different way.
Especially when your true point is figuring out if your making the Gods too strong or too weak(which honestly you should have just asked that as it's vastly different then your 20s vs commoners scenario). Build your Gods how you want them. Put in mechanics for how to adjust them on the fly depending on how the battle is going. And then use those mechanics to adjust the scenario as it plays out so you get it set at the correct difficulty you are looking for. That's what I do with the group of lvl 20s I DM that are literally going after demi gods and other extremely powerful entities. At the end of the day if everyone at the table is having fun, your doing it right. Don't make DnD/DMing harder than it is supposed to be. Just my 2 cents
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I think the discussion re: commoners has plateaued at the conclusion that the PC's could keep going indefinitely until they died of exhaustion levels (if you're tracking those).
However, I like this and don't want it to end just yet, so let's up the ante. I once threw a room of 30 zombies at a party of 6 level 5's and it reminded me a lot of this, so what if instead of commoners we had the same premise but with zombies?
Alternatively, what about goblins?
One Meteor Swarm does 40d6 to 160 square feet, and that's probably the entire village. So it's pretty much only going to take one action to level the village, kill all the Commoners, and leave nothing behind but scorched earth, and whatever the Commoners were holding, carrying, or wearing at the time.
That's a reasonable approximation of what it would be like to fight a god. They would pretty much only need to narrow their eyes (Sorcerer, subtle spell) and everyone inside of about 160 square feet that wasn't a god would die instantly.
<Insert clever signature here>
Its all about what effects and attacks are available to the group of creatures. If the creatures have no ranged attack (like zombies) or no magical attacks or spells (like any of these creatures) then their ability to damage a high level PC is very limited, even if they hit on any sort of regular basis (5% is regular, but not often). There are too many variables in magic items and builds to say exactly what the real limiting factor would be, and you will already be hamstringing the party by removing teleportation and other ways to escape to make the scenario valid anyway.
I would say that either of the two alternate creatures you present would have a slightly easier time bringing down a level 20 party as commoners would, but that is mainly due to the damage of their weapons/attacks compared to the d4s the commoner can dish out, and the discussion will still hinge on how magic items and class abilities might change the scenario.
You could achieve something even lazier with champion's survivor ability, granted only at half HP. Still, you have a fighter that's never going to die to commoners.itll even work in your sleep.
So what do you figure. Multiply that time by 2? 3? Per healer in the group? Not even accounting for healing potions…. Then multiply that time by some amount to account for the party not just standing there getting beat on. (Figure the party needs to be limited to prevent them from running away/hiding forever, but not so limited they just stand their till someone finally manages to hit them.)
I figure if a party could somehow lock down a God for 2-3 days, and spend that entire time continuously fighting it (without dying), they could probably kill the God.
Actually, if the commoners are static then 8 (not 9) can attack per turn.
But assuming that the commoners are willing to sacrifice one of themselves every turn, then the PC can be surrounded by a lot more commoners all who step forward to attack on their turn and then retreat - 30 ft movement, subtract 5 ft for each ally they have to pass to get within range to strike the PC. The PC gets to strike back at only one of them with the OA.
So the commoners stand 15 ft back and 10 ft back to allow all to get an attack in - this means 12 standing at 10 ft away and 16 standing at 15 ft away, and none standing within melee range - so 28 attacks in one round against that surrounded PC.
Elsewhere, a broom of flying could be used for those classes that would benefit from an unlimited number of short rests - jump on the broom and fly up out of range for an hour's rest.
You're quite right. This also ups the number of casualties that the fighter can inflict by 1 per turn, since he's likely to hit with most of his opportunity attacks, but is largely irrelevant because of the infinite number of commoners.
This means that they need 32 turns in order to bring him down (896 / 28), which is 192 seconds, which is only 3 minutes and 12 seconds.
As said early on unless you restrict them further the party of level 20s can replenish there resources, even if they are a much lower level. Rather than taking out a village I am assumed a "tower defence" type scenario where the commoners / zombies just keep on coming. Having said that things might be a little more open to interpretation against zombies.
Against commoners
While this works with Commoners Zombies can pass through anti-lfe spell so the caster may have trould casting tie hut on the ground this is where the interpretation of the rules comes in:
After that the best tactics of the party relies on extremely likely probabilities to get the hut made. Undead fortitude means to guarante a kill you need radiant so I think the best tactics are 3 clerics casting spiriit guardians at 9th level (surrounding the tiny hut caster) along with sleet storm, the DCs will be high enough that the zombies will auto fail the dex and wis saves so will need to take 3 turns to get to caster even if they dash, taking 27d8 damage. Zombies can have up to 33HP but it is incredibly unlikely that they would survive 3 rounds (chance less than 1 in a trillion)
Once in the hut cast forbidance and after 30 days there is even more damages the zombies get hit with if they enter the area the hut is cast each night.
The original question said that the village would spawn infinite commoners, which makes me imagine this being sort of a tower defense type of deal, where the commoners are spawning every round or so, not that there's an area filled to the brim with commoners... The question wasn't an area containing an infinite amount at once, it's about a village that spawns an infinite amount right.. I feel like there's a significant difference there.
This makes me wonder at what rate the commoners spawn... Yea they are infinite, but if they only spawn 5 or so every round, the part can just kill them as they spawn. Also, can the party stay at a good 90 ft from the spawn location?
If sleep/exhaustion is not a problem: Path of the Zealot Barbarian with Persistant Rage and Rage Beyond Death is literally unstoppable for the commoners.
An attempt to draw a parallel between a group of adventurers fighting a god (god has the advantage), and the same group of adventurers fighting commoners (adventurers have the advantage).
I figure in both cases, the underdog COULD win, but the chances of that are so low as to be functionally impossible.
You have to give the strong side some handicaps. I think it goes without saying that a full party of level 20's are going to cleave through dozens upon dozens of commoners without any real issue. If they are allowed to sleep and recoup their spent health/spell slots, the commoners have no chance. In the same idea that if a God has access to infinite power (or can simply planeshift itself/you away), there is no real reason that they should ever lose.
Yup. That's pretty much it. A god could never lose to a mortal, and a mortal can never become a god in 5th edition D&D, as there are currently no rules for divine ascension.
<Insert clever signature here>
Because i like the idea of "if you can meet the insanely difficult requirements, you too can accomplish the impossible". Whether that be taking down a group of fully kit'd out max level adventurers as a generic commoner, or killing a literal God. I love the idea that if you can think far enough outside the box (a very mortal trait), even the impossible becomes possible.
But the starting question was asked, because i was trying to figure out if i'm making the Gods too strong or too weak. And rather then flood the board with hundreds of minor "what if's" it was easier to ask an overarching question and "solve" the many creative answers to my question.
The original question just doesnt work though because the group of level 20s could literally kill the commoners in your scenario forever since you removed exhaustion.
General rule of thumb I use - if I have to alter the rules as much as your attempting to in this scenario, then the whole scenario is a failure on my part and I need to approach creating it in a different way.
Especially when your true point is figuring out if your making the Gods too strong or too weak(which honestly you should have just asked that as it's vastly different then your 20s vs commoners scenario). Build your Gods how you want them. Put in mechanics for how to adjust them on the fly depending on how the battle is going. And then use those mechanics to adjust the scenario as it plays out so you get it set at the correct difficulty you are looking for. That's what I do with the group of lvl 20s I DM that are literally going after demi gods and other extremely powerful entities. At the end of the day if everyone at the table is having fun, your doing it right. Don't make DnD/DMing harder than it is supposed to be. Just my 2 cents