I've been looking around and I haven't really found anything that really address what I'm looking for. There seems to be plenty of discussion about CR and how to balance an encounter at high level or low level but that's not what I need.
I currently have a party of 5 level 9 characters on a train in "Fantasy Australia" just a big empty desert. My plan was to raid the train with a party of sand people / nomads / bandits under the cover of a sandstorm. The problem is that I don't want to throw 20 cr 1/8 enemies at my players. Aside from the action economy of dealing with that many enemies, I don't think it will be all that fun for my players to just kill several dozen bandits with little to no problem. (Though I do understand the danger of facing lots of tiny enemies). So aside from throwing a powerful monster at the train, how can I run a train heist for my players to defend against without it feeling "easy". (I also understand there is nothing wrong with creating easy encounters for the players, but at a point if the fight takes ~30 minutes, no one is hurt, it has nothing to do with the plot, what was the point of the encounter even happening) I want the encounter to happen not for plot reasons, but to show that there is life outside the players, the "bandits" are attacking the train who if the players take the time to investigate will find out are attacking because their people are enslaved by the train's company to preform labor in the mines the train services. IE. There are politics at play behind the scenes and it makes sense that the train would be attacked by these "bandits" but in favor of making it fun for my players, how do I make a fight with a bunch of low CR enemies fun? Should I just pick a higher level CR statblock of something like a bunch of "Martial Arts Adepts" and call them bandits?
I understand that the higher level the players get the more "powerful" they should feel, a level 1 party facing a group of bandits is different than a level 10 party dealing with the same encounter. But does this mean that at a certain level you should just stop having bandits step out of the trees saying "Stop, you owe us a fee if you want to walk out of this alive." because the players will just laugh, cast fireball and walk away?
TLDR: How do you throw low level natural threats such as highwaymen or bandits at a high level party while still making it feel like an encounter. (Primarily because if I'm going to give my players the option to fight something, I would rather it not be over in one round). I'm all for the idea that as the players get higher level they become closer to Gods, a party that can kill a dragon shouldn't feel threatened by a group of bandits, but does this mean I should stop throwing "random encounters" at the party, and while I could throw higher CR random encounters, where did these suddenly high level threats and monsters come from in a world they've been exploring for the past (real life) two years.
Environment. 30 or so kobolds, with a few Dragonshields and Scale Sorcerers, will easily die to a level 9 party in a straight fight. But by using ambushes, cover, and tactics, those same kobolds can cause a near-TPK. What if the party is spread out across the train, and the bandits decouple the cars, forcing the characters to split up? One group defends the engine, another defends the treasure, and both are pinned down by smart and savvy bandits. And/or you could have a fight running atop a moving train, with the characters trying to make it to the treasure car while the bandits try to stop them, where bandits try to push characters off, leaving them in the dust if they succeed.
Well, I don't know much, but I'll go off what I do know.
Using Matthew Mercer as reference, he had the party get ambushed by bandits early in the campaign. The party taught them a lesson, gave them a scare, and sent them off. Later in the campaign, when the players were a tier higher, they met the same bandits again. The bandits had gotten replacements for the ones that the party had killed, and only the bandits from the original band remembered the party and begged the other bandits to put down their weapons before they could be killed. It was very funny. At later levels, he stopped making the party keep watch because they could literally take on anything in the area without breaking a sweat.
What I mean to say is, traveling by foot becomes less of (and eventually not at all of) a problem at higher levels, so all you really need to do if you can't find a challenge is tell them how long it takes to get there, mark it down, and move on, unless you actually have something planned along the way.
I understand that the higher level the players get the more "powerful" they should feel, a level 1 party facing a group of bandits is different than a level 10 party dealing with the same encounter. But does this mean that at a certain level you should just stop having bandits step out of the trees saying "Stop, you owe us a fee if you want to walk out of this alive." because the players will just laugh, cast fireball and walk away?
Yes, it does mean that. This doesn't mean you can't have problems going on that don't have anything to do with the PCs, they'll just be things that are more dramatic in scope and involved more setup. For example, the bandits might be harmless, but if they've figured out how to trick a Purple Worm into attacking the train, that's a perfectly dangerous fight.
Aside from the action economy of dealing with that many enemies, I don't think it will be all that fun for my players to just kill several dozen bandits with little to no problem.
I think you are underestimating how much fun it is being a total badass mowing down hordes of enemies.
Aside from the action economy of dealing with that many enemies, I don't think it will be all that fun for my players to just kill several dozen bandits with little to no problem.
I think you are underestimating how much fun it is being a total badass mowing down hordes of enemies.
I second this, but if I may make an additional suggestion: a concept from 4th edition that I wish had made it into 5th was the use of minions, which were a bit different from normal monsters in that they were meant to go down whenever they took any sort of damage (and treated effects that dealt partial damage on a miss or successful save as dealing no damage) and as such weren't much of a threat individually, but still provided a challenge by virtue of their numbers. Obviously this will take a bit of work to port over, but if you leaned into the idea of their danger coming more from their numbers than their abilities as individuals (and perhaps adjusting their chances to hit the players so their attacks aren't worthless) then that could make for a memorable encounter.
The encounter will only be overly easy if they are in a direct fight with the bandits. Presumably the characters are in the train and the bandits are outside to start with, so the bandits will be prepared & equipped for the sandstorm and the players won't be. This can be represented with disadvantage on attacks unless the players get goggles and masks from somewhere.
The bandits will have a goal of their raid - they aren't here to fight to the death with the players, they are after the treasure on the train, so their goal is get in > get the gold > get out, preferably with minimal casualties (though some might think otherwise, for bigger shares). As such you should come up with a few tactics for the bandits -perhaps they will detach the carriages of the train (if the treasure's at the front, they will detach the carriages behind and steal the train + treasure, and if it's at the back they will detach this carriage instead and steal the treasure when it stops). They might aim to remove all the enemies from the train, meaning pushing and shoving the players off. They might pick up the treasure in pieces (each bandit grabbing a handful) and then make their way off the train and onto their horses. They might have a wizard in their ranks, waiting below the bridge ahead to cast fireball and bring it down - make it well known to the players that the bandits see the bridge coming, and very obviously scramble to get off the train before it gets there, leaving the players to do some quick thinking as to why the bandits might do such a thing!
Giving the bandits several goals is also key to success - the bandits might first try to secure the engine, which would prompt the party to move up to stop them, but there will be bandits to fight through to get there, and then more bandits will approach the treasure, and could get around the party through distraction tactics.
The most important thing to remember is that a raiding band of bandits isn't looking to kill the party, so CR rating is a little bit of an irrelevance! You can just keep adding bandits to make the scene work in a cool way, and work out how many turns of combat to give them before they reach a bridge that's going to blow, or just have the bandits call off the attack if the players kill too many of them!
Mix in some Bandit Captains to give them a bit more of a fight, keeping them occupied for longer and thus buying time for the other bandits to pull off the raid. If they are well equipped, they could have a wagon roll up alongside with a pair of ogres in it as heavies!
I've been looking around and I haven't really found anything that really address what I'm looking for. There seems to be plenty of discussion about CR and how to balance an encounter at high level or low level but that's not what I need.
I currently have a party of 5 level 9 characters on a train in "Fantasy Australia" just a big empty desert. My plan was to raid the train with a party of sand people / nomads / bandits under the cover of a sandstorm. The problem is that I don't want to throw 20 cr 1/8 enemies at my players. Aside from the action economy of dealing with that many enemies, I don't think it will be all that fun for my players to just kill several dozen bandits with little to no problem. (Though I do understand the danger of facing lots of tiny enemies). So aside from throwing a powerful monster at the train, how can I run a train heist for my players to defend against without it feeling "easy". (I also understand there is nothing wrong with creating easy encounters for the players, but at a point if the fight takes ~30 minutes, no one is hurt, it has nothing to do with the plot, what was the point of the encounter even happening) I want the encounter to happen not for plot reasons, but to show that there is life outside the players, the "bandits" are attacking the train who if the players take the time to investigate will find out are attacking because their people are enslaved by the train's company to preform labor in the mines the train services. IE. There are politics at play behind the scenes and it makes sense that the train would be attacked by these "bandits" but in favor of making it fun for my players, how do I make a fight with a bunch of low CR enemies fun? Should I just pick a higher level CR statblock of something like a bunch of "Martial Arts Adepts" and call them bandits?
I understand that the higher level the players get the more "powerful" they should feel, a level 1 party facing a group of bandits is different than a level 10 party dealing with the same encounter. But does this mean that at a certain level you should just stop having bandits step out of the trees saying "Stop, you owe us a fee if you want to walk out of this alive." because the players will just laugh, cast fireball and walk away?
TLDR: How do you throw low level natural threats such as highwaymen or bandits at a high level party while still making it feel like an encounter. (Primarily because if I'm going to give my players the option to fight something, I would rather it not be over in one round). I'm all for the idea that as the players get higher level they become closer to Gods, a party that can kill a dragon shouldn't feel threatened by a group of bandits, but does this mean I should stop throwing "random encounters" at the party, and while I could throw higher CR random encounters, where did these suddenly high level threats and monsters come from in a world they've been exploring for the past (real life) two years.
There is a larger goal to your encounter here so focus not on the number of enemies but how you get that story across to the players. Look at how they attack, turn the environment against the players, 15 CR1/8 enemies are easy to kill, but are the as easy in a sandstorm where the players are at disadvantage, or count as blinded? Is it as easy a fight with civilians in the way? What if the bandits try to decouple the carriages the players are on, or the ones they are not, the players get sucked into fighting a few willing to make the sacrifice and then realise the rest are sliding into the distance as the train goes off.
There are lots of ways to approach this without it just being a slog and make the low level enemies harder to deal with because they are actively avoiding the head on fight.
As for random encounters, in 20 years Of DMing I have never thrown a random encounter at a party, I try and plan out and give a story and meaning to everything. Party are walking through a forest, I decide they will face off against wolves. I will know why the wolves are there, a hunting pack, it’s their territory and they have young, food is scarce in the forest etc. the players may never know the motivation, in fact I would say generally they don’t, but it shapes how I run those monsters, how hard they fight and at what point they try and retreat.
I've been looking around and I haven't really found anything that really address what I'm looking for. There seems to be plenty of discussion about CR and how to balance an encounter at high level or low level but that's not what I need.
I currently have a party of 5 level 9 characters on a train in "Fantasy Australia" just a big empty desert. My plan was to raid the train with a party of sand people / nomads / bandits under the cover of a sandstorm. The problem is that I don't want to throw 20 cr 1/8 enemies at my players. Aside from the action economy of dealing with that many enemies, I don't think it will be all that fun for my players to just kill several dozen bandits with little to no problem. (Though I do understand the danger of facing lots of tiny enemies). So aside from throwing a powerful monster at the train, how can I run a train heist for my players to defend against without it feeling "easy". (I also understand there is nothing wrong with creating easy encounters for the players, but at a point if the fight takes ~30 minutes, no one is hurt, it has nothing to do with the plot, what was the point of the encounter even happening)
I want the encounter to happen not for plot reasons, but to show that there is life outside the players, the "bandits" are attacking the train who if the players take the time to investigate will find out are attacking because their people are enslaved by the train's company to preform labor in the mines the train services. IE. There are politics at play behind the scenes and it makes sense that the train would be attacked by these "bandits" but in favor of making it fun for my players, how do I make a fight with a bunch of low CR enemies fun? Should I just pick a higher level CR statblock of something like a bunch of "Martial Arts Adepts" and call them bandits?
I understand that the higher level the players get the more "powerful" they should feel, a level 1 party facing a group of bandits is different than a level 10 party dealing with the same encounter. But does this mean that at a certain level you should just stop having bandits step out of the trees saying "Stop, you owe us a fee if you want to walk out of this alive." because the players will just laugh, cast fireball and walk away?
TLDR:
How do you throw low level natural threats such as highwaymen or bandits at a high level party while still making it feel like an encounter. (Primarily because if I'm going to give my players the option to fight something, I would rather it not be over in one round).
I'm all for the idea that as the players get higher level they become closer to Gods, a party that can kill a dragon shouldn't feel threatened by a group of bandits, but does this mean I should stop throwing "random encounters" at the party, and while I could throw higher CR random encounters, where did these suddenly high level threats and monsters come from in a world they've been exploring for the past (real life) two years.
Environment. 30 or so kobolds, with a few Dragonshields and Scale Sorcerers, will easily die to a level 9 party in a straight fight. But by using ambushes, cover, and tactics, those same kobolds can cause a near-TPK. What if the party is spread out across the train, and the bandits decouple the cars, forcing the characters to split up? One group defends the engine, another defends the treasure, and both are pinned down by smart and savvy bandits. And/or you could have a fight running atop a moving train, with the characters trying to make it to the treasure car while the bandits try to stop them, where bandits try to push characters off, leaving them in the dust if they succeed.
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Well, I don't know much, but I'll go off what I do know.
Using Matthew Mercer as reference, he had the party get ambushed by bandits early in the campaign. The party taught them a lesson, gave them a scare, and sent them off. Later in the campaign, when the players were a tier higher, they met the same bandits again. The bandits had gotten replacements for the ones that the party had killed, and only the bandits from the original band remembered the party and begged the other bandits to put down their weapons before they could be killed. It was very funny. At later levels, he stopped making the party keep watch because they could literally take on anything in the area without breaking a sweat.
What I mean to say is, traveling by foot becomes less of (and eventually not at all of) a problem at higher levels, so all you really need to do if you can't find a challenge is tell them how long it takes to get there, mark it down, and move on, unless you actually have something planned along the way.
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Yes, it does mean that. This doesn't mean you can't have problems going on that don't have anything to do with the PCs, they'll just be things that are more dramatic in scope and involved more setup. For example, the bandits might be harmless, but if they've figured out how to trick a Purple Worm into attacking the train, that's a perfectly dangerous fight.
I think you are underestimating how much fun it is being a total badass mowing down hordes of enemies.
I second this, but if I may make an additional suggestion: a concept from 4th edition that I wish had made it into 5th was the use of minions, which were a bit different from normal monsters in that they were meant to go down whenever they took any sort of damage (and treated effects that dealt partial damage on a miss or successful save as dealing no damage) and as such weren't much of a threat individually, but still provided a challenge by virtue of their numbers. Obviously this will take a bit of work to port over, but if you leaned into the idea of their danger coming more from their numbers than their abilities as individuals (and perhaps adjusting their chances to hit the players so their attacks aren't worthless) then that could make for a memorable encounter.
The encounter will only be overly easy if they are in a direct fight with the bandits. Presumably the characters are in the train and the bandits are outside to start with, so the bandits will be prepared & equipped for the sandstorm and the players won't be. This can be represented with disadvantage on attacks unless the players get goggles and masks from somewhere.
The bandits will have a goal of their raid - they aren't here to fight to the death with the players, they are after the treasure on the train, so their goal is get in > get the gold > get out, preferably with minimal casualties (though some might think otherwise, for bigger shares). As such you should come up with a few tactics for the bandits -perhaps they will detach the carriages of the train (if the treasure's at the front, they will detach the carriages behind and steal the train + treasure, and if it's at the back they will detach this carriage instead and steal the treasure when it stops). They might aim to remove all the enemies from the train, meaning pushing and shoving the players off. They might pick up the treasure in pieces (each bandit grabbing a handful) and then make their way off the train and onto their horses. They might have a wizard in their ranks, waiting below the bridge ahead to cast fireball and bring it down - make it well known to the players that the bandits see the bridge coming, and very obviously scramble to get off the train before it gets there, leaving the players to do some quick thinking as to why the bandits might do such a thing!
Giving the bandits several goals is also key to success - the bandits might first try to secure the engine, which would prompt the party to move up to stop them, but there will be bandits to fight through to get there, and then more bandits will approach the treasure, and could get around the party through distraction tactics.
The most important thing to remember is that a raiding band of bandits isn't looking to kill the party, so CR rating is a little bit of an irrelevance! You can just keep adding bandits to make the scene work in a cool way, and work out how many turns of combat to give them before they reach a bridge that's going to blow, or just have the bandits call off the attack if the players kill too many of them!
Mix in some Bandit Captains to give them a bit more of a fight, keeping them occupied for longer and thus buying time for the other bandits to pull off the raid. If they are well equipped, they could have a wagon roll up alongside with a pair of ogres in it as heavies!
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Have you considered a smaller more specialist group, maybe matching the party?
There is a larger goal to your encounter here so focus not on the number of enemies but how you get that story across to the players. Look at how they attack, turn the environment against the players, 15 CR1/8 enemies are easy to kill, but are the as easy in a sandstorm where the players are at disadvantage, or count as blinded? Is it as easy a fight with civilians in the way? What if the bandits try to decouple the carriages the players are on, or the ones they are not, the players get sucked into fighting a few willing to make the sacrifice and then realise the rest are sliding into the distance as the train goes off.
There are lots of ways to approach this without it just being a slog and make the low level enemies harder to deal with because they are actively avoiding the head on fight.
As for random encounters, in 20 years Of DMing I have never thrown a random encounter at a party, I try and plan out and give a story and meaning to everything. Party are walking through a forest, I decide they will face off against wolves. I will know why the wolves are there, a hunting pack, it’s their territory and they have young, food is scarce in the forest etc. the players may never know the motivation, in fact I would say generally they don’t, but it shapes how I run those monsters, how hard they fight and at what point they try and retreat.