So i got a party of level 5's and they will have half a dozen NPC knights with them.
So the encounter is versus 6 minotaur, 3 bug bear, and half a dozen goblins that will be providing long range cover for the rest of the opponents (they will run away if the players try to engage). The encounter thing says it's a deadly fight, but i've had deadly fights turn into cake walks before....
Same. I'm new to dnd so I cant help you much. But i had a party of 5 level 3 characters that defeated a gang of 6 wererats. You might want to try using the guidelines in the dungeon master's guide. Just use the knights XP value as their hard threshold.
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When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
So i got a party of level 5's and they will have half a dozen NPC knights with them.
So the encounter is versus 6 minotaur, 3 bug bear, and half a dozen goblins that will be providing long range cover for the rest of the opponents (they will run away if the players try to engage). The encounter thing says it's a deadly fight, but i've had deadly fights turn into cake walks before....
The encounter builder doesn't know how to deal with NPC allies as far as I know. In principle six CR 3 knights trade evenly with six CR 3 MInotaurs, leaving three bugbears and six goblins for the PCs to deal with, which is barely a warmup at level 5.
First up: Fireball, or similar AoE spells. If you put in lots and lots of enemies, these spells get consistently better up to their area cap. Be wary of that. But this is a minor issue.
Actions Taken by the DM vs. Actions taken by the players
Assuming 4 PCs, you have more NPCs than players. Moreover, each of the knights is a CR3 creature: It is considered a Medium level challenge for 4 x level 3 characters on its own. Four knights is a Deadly encounter for 4 x Level 5 PCs. Six knights and I'd start favouring the knights, unless the PCs were on a long rest. With AC18 and 52 hit points, the knights are going to tank all the damage in the fight, removing the threat, whilst also dealing some decent damage. The knights are going to have more impact than the PCs.
If two PCs are martial classes and have the Extra Attack feature, and two of them are spellcasters and decide to use a cantrip that turn, then the following should happen:
The PCs make a total of 6 dice rolls to hit between them, and up to 6 damage rolls between them.
The knights then make a total of 12 attacks and 12 damage rolls (DM rolls: 24)
The Minotaurs then make a total of 6 Charge attacks and up to 6 damage rolls (DM rolls: 24+12)
The Bugbears each make one attack and one damage roll (DM rolls: 24+12+6)
The goblins shoot with shortbows 6 times (DM rolls: 24+12+6+12)
In total, your players - and it's their game to play - make 6 attack rolls, and 6 damage rolls for a total of 12 rolls. The monsters on the other hand make up to 54 dice rolls.
At this point, you're effectively playing the game by yourself. Your players are going to be waiting a long time to get to make another decision. Moreover, NPCs attacking other NPCs is extremely boring to watch. There is nothing fun about the minotaurs and knights hacking away at each other. The PCs are unlikely to be terribly invested into the knights.
So I've explained this in detail not to 'correct' your encounter but to provide guidance on how to design good adventure encounters in general. Try to stick to these guidelines:
No more than one friendly NPC should really be on the battlefield. This is your players' game. Let them be the heroes.
Keep the number of rolls that monsters will make somewhat comparable to the number of rolls that the DM will make. You know how a Dragon gets 3 Legendary Actions? That's because the dragon should get 1 turn for each turn the PCs get, assuming a standard party of 4. Assume that everyone has Multiattack for these balancing purposes, and apply this logic to all fights. If there are 4 PCs at level 5, then they make 8 attacks between them per turn. You should therefore aim to have 8 attacks back on them in a balanced encounter. Want to push the encounter difficulty up? Go a bit higher, but not too much - 10-12 attacks is ok. It's better if you hit harder than hit with a lot of small attacks.
The worst thing about combat is if you have to wait a long, long time between being able to make choices or do anything. Each player should be taking a turn at least every 20 minutes, at the very longest. Make sure that they aren't sitting there watching you roll buckets of dice that have little to do with them.
For your own encounter:
3 Minotaurs against 4 x level 5 PCs is a Hard encounter, and 4 Minotaurs is deadly. The players will have a much more fun time playing either of those fights than they will watching a fight between NPCs and monsters.
A single deadly encounter per adventuring day (period between long rests) will be a cake walk if your PCs nova all of their resources at that single encounter. If this is what's happening increase the number of combat encounters prior to the finale, or run the finale as waves of pre-fights prior to the finish.
If you are running combats where the monsters are merely standing there and taking a solid beatdown with no response to the PCs, I might suggest letting the monsters run tactics and splitting their initiative rolls up. Maybe not one initiative roll per monster, but one per small tactical unit of 3-5 creatures.
At the end of either of these, if you haven't gotten to or surpassed the xp budget for the adventuring day, your PCs should, at least in theory, be alive, worried, and looking like they took a trip through an industrial stand mixer.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
At the end of either of these, if you haven't gotten to or surpassed the xp budget for the adventuring day, your PCs should, at least in theory, be alive, worried, and looking like they took a trip through an industrial stand mixer.
I will say that spending your entire adventuring day budget on a single encounter will probably be excessive, though two encounters each half the daily budget should be okay.
A single deadly encounter per adventuring day (period between long rests) will be a cake walk if your PCs nova all of their resources at that single encounter. If this is what's happening increase the number of combat encounters prior to the finale, or run the finale as waves of pre-fights prior to the finish.
If you are running combats where the monsters are merely standing there and taking a solid beatdown with no response to the PCs, I might suggest letting the monsters run tactics and splitting their initiative rolls up. Maybe not one initiative roll per monster, but one per small tactical unit of 3-5 creatures.
At the end of either of these, if you haven't gotten to or surpassed the xp budget for the adventuring day, your PCs should, at least in theory, be alive, worried, and looking like they took a trip through an industrial stand mixer.
I just wanted to second this comment.
I was in a party of 6 level 6 characters - barbarian, monk, rogue, warlock, druid, wizard - and we were fighting a large group of undead - 10+ ghouls, 10+ ghasts, 8+ wights, at least one wraith. Just the wraith and 6 wights is deadly. Adding 22 more undead on top of that is something like 5x deadly based on adjusted XP. The party used almost all available resources. All the third level slots from the casters, ki etc and we killed about 25 of the undead before taking a strategic retreat. We weren't seriously damaged, the raging barbarian and monk were a little below 1/2 hit points but we had run out of ways to damage the creatures in large groups or mitigate damage against us so we retreated just before the tide was likely to turn since there appeared to be more undead in the wings.
However, the point is, that depending on the party, a group with full resources and hit points (especially in tier 2 and above) can often deal with encounters that are well above deadly if they have a decent tactical situation and are willing to use all their resources.
In your example, I think the encounter is likely to be very easy since there are 6 CR3 knight NPCs as their allies in the fight. Some of the NPCs may die if the opponents focus their attacks but the party is likely to mow down the opposition in most tactical situations.
Yeah. I dont think the players will enjoy a battle where you are making all the rolls. Or you could maybe make the knights guards and maybe take away a couple of minatours. Or even better, that could just be some regular encounter to soften up the players for the final boss.
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When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
Maybe the players could run the knights? I've had a campaign (DC- ship fight) where there was a lot of good combatant NPCs and I had my players run them. It was more fun for the players and easier for me.
I get the idea that you want a battle on a grand scale, but I agree with Sanvael that the players are not going to feel very important in a situation where they can sit the whole fight out and still win. NPC combat should generally be offscreen or at least off to the side and just represented by minis engaged in combat that don't actually make any rolls. Keep the spotlight on the PCs.
What if i made it 6 minotuars, 3 owlbears and a unified group of goblins (one initiative slot) VS. 6 level 5 PC's?
Without allies? Unless they start in favorable conditions (the minotaurs and owlbears are melee brutes, so an encounter starting at long range favors the PCs, particularly if they are also bunched up for convenient area attacks) they probably die. At level 5 a medium encounter for 6 level 5 PCs is about roughly 3 x CR 3. Reasonably fresh PCs can generally handle the equivalent of two medium encounters at once (6 x CR 3), the equivalent of three at once (9 x CR 3) is fairly likely to be a kill, and throwing in a group of goblins is very likely to push it over the edge.
Your original encounter, without the six knights, would likely be pushing the edge of a TPK, it's just that the knights are a giant meat-wall that makes everything much easier.
What if i made it 6 minotuars, 3 owlbears and a unified group of goblins (one initiative slot) VS. 6 level 5 PC's?
If the PCs are fresh from a long rest, then they should handle the minotaurs and owlbears in reasonable conditions but as Pantagruel says, the goblins will push them over.
With large numbers of enemies on the opposing side, things get very "swingy." The more dice you're rolling, the more chance of that natural 20 happening, and then happening again.
I really suggest listening to what I said in my first post on this thread about keeping the numbers relatively even. But I don't think you're that interested in learning about how to build encounters since you just cut the knights and then upped the power of some of the other monsters. Learning principles will stand you in much better stead than just changing things at random.
What if i made it 6 minotuars, 3 owlbears and a unified group of goblins (one initiative slot) VS. 6 level 5 PC's?
You know your party far better than we do. You also know how you run monsters at your table, and how your players mount tactics to defeat them. Asking those of us who can only suppose how this will go is just that: asking for someone to guess at how this will go. You are the most capable at providing a definitive answer to your own question. The best suggestion that I can give you is to test the upper limits of what the party can handle. (Note I said test, not surpass)
Both encounters that your posited are deadly by CR - Encounter math. That much is verifiable. In your original encounter, if you deduct the monsters from the encounter equal to the xp of the NPC's with the party (as has been suggested), you come up with a ballpark of 400xp worth of monsters. For context - 8 Goblin vs. a party of 6 LVL 5 PCs. I would assume that this would be a cake walk for the PCs, and also a self-defeating encounter. If you were to apply the same process to the second encounter, you would come up with a ballpark of 4200xp. Again, for context - 3 Minotaur and 3 Owlbear or just at the long end of a hard encounter. If both of these are the singular combat encounter for the adventuring day (budget for 6 lvl 5 - 21,000xp) this will most likely also be a dress rehearsal for an actual combat encounter as it will only cover about 1/4th of the daily budget allowed.
The piece that is wholly missing from all of this conjecture is: How many combat encounters have the party gone through to this point, and how many more of what do they have to go before the end of the chapter? Again, pretty challenging from the armchair DM position to tell you that this will difinitively be a TPK or a breeze.
Lastly, all of this discussion about xp budgets and NPC CR and how many of what don't really matter if you, as the DM, are having a good dice day and the party can't roll above a 4.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
For the reasons Kaavel said I can not say if your encounter is balanced.
One thing you could do is find the bad guys split up a bit, close enough that if you all approach one group the others will join them. Then have one knight suggest they take on the minators while the party take on the rest of the bad guys. When the party have defeated their enemies they look over to where the knights, if the party are completely spent they see a knight kill the final minators, if the players had a cake walk they see the minators winning with 2 or three knights unconcious/dead and the party are expected to help them. This enables you to adjust the difficulty on the fly and not have you making nearly all the rolls.
What if i made it 6 minotuars, 3 owlbears and a unified group of goblins (one initiative slot) VS. 6 level 5 PC's?
You know your party far better than we do. You also know how you run monsters at your table, and how your players mount tactics to defeat them. Asking those of us who can only suppose how this will go is just that: asking for someone to guess at how this will go. You are the most capable at providing a definitive answer to your own question. The best suggestion that I can give you is to test the upper limits of what the party can handle. (Note I said test, not surpass)
Both encounters that your posited are deadly by CR - Encounter math. That much is verifiable. In your original encounter, if you deduct the monsters from the encounter equal to the xp of the NPC's with the party (as has been suggested), you come up with a ballpark of 400xp worth of monsters. For context - 8 Goblin vs. a party of 6 LVL 5 PCs. I would assume that this would be a cake walk for the PCs, and also a self-defeating encounter. If you were to apply the same process to the second encounter, you would come up with a ballpark of 4200xp. Again, for context - 3 Minotaur and 3 Owlbear or just at the long end of a hard encounter. If both of these are the singular combat encounter for the adventuring day (budget for 6 lvl 5 - 21,000xp) this will most likely also be a dress rehearsal for an actual combat encounter as it will only cover about 1/4th of the daily budget allowed.
The piece that is wholly missing from all of this conjecture is: How many combat encounters have the party gone through to this point, and how many more of what do they have to go before the end of the chapter? Again, pretty challenging from the armchair DM position to tell you that this will difinitively be a TPK or a breeze.
Lastly, all of this discussion about xp budgets and NPC CR and how many of what don't really matter if you, as the DM, are having a good dice day and the party can't roll above a 4.
ahh i see the misconception here. I have ZERO idea how this party is going to play, it's going to be a first time playing with a group of friends (some of whom i'm not sure have ever played D&D). I will know the class make up of the party but no idea how they play together. So this does feel like the ideal point to ask for armchair DM suggestions, because everyone is going in with roughly an equal level of knowledge of how this will all play out.
If it helps, the party currently consists of 2 Sorcs, 1 warlock, 1 artificer, 1 barb/bard hybrid, and 1 druid
What if i made it 6 minotuars, 3 owlbears and a unified group of goblins (one initiative slot) VS. 6 level 5 PC's?
You know your party far better than we do. You also know how you run monsters at your table, and how your players mount tactics to defeat them. Asking those of us who can only suppose how this will go is just that: asking for someone to guess at how this will go. You are the most capable at providing a definitive answer to your own question. The best suggestion that I can give you is to test the upper limits of what the party can handle. (Note I said test, not surpass)
Both encounters that your posited are deadly by CR - Encounter math. That much is verifiable. In your original encounter, if you deduct the monsters from the encounter equal to the xp of the NPC's with the party (as has been suggested), you come up with a ballpark of 400xp worth of monsters. For context - 8 Goblin vs. a party of 6 LVL 5 PCs. I would assume that this would be a cake walk for the PCs, and also a self-defeating encounter. If you were to apply the same process to the second encounter, you would come up with a ballpark of 4200xp. Again, for context - 3 Minotaur and 3 Owlbear or just at the long end of a hard encounter. If both of these are the singular combat encounter for the adventuring day (budget for 6 lvl 5 - 21,000xp) this will most likely also be a dress rehearsal for an actual combat encounter as it will only cover about 1/4th of the daily budget allowed.
The piece that is wholly missing from all of this conjecture is: How many combat encounters have the party gone through to this point, and how many more of what do they have to go before the end of the chapter? Again, pretty challenging from the armchair DM position to tell you that this will difinitively be a TPK or a breeze.
Lastly, all of this discussion about xp budgets and NPC CR and how many of what don't really matter if you, as the DM, are having a good dice day and the party can't roll above a 4.
ahh i see the misconception here. I have ZERO idea how this party is going to play, it's going to be a first time playing with a group of friends (some of whom i'm not sure have ever played D&D). I will know the class make up of the party but no idea how they play together. So this does feel like the ideal point to ask for armchair DM suggestions, because everyone is going in with roughly an equal level of knowledge of how this will all play out.
If it helps, the party currently consists of 2 Sorcs, 1 warlock, 1 artificer, 1 barb/bard hybrid, and 1 druid
Why on earth are you starting the party at 5th level, especially if they have never played before?
There is a reason you start at level 1: so that players can learn the game. This is going to be a disaster. You don't know how to DM a fight (because you're new to DM'ing), your players don't know how to play their PCs in a fight (because they are new). So instead of using simple level 1 characters you're going in at level 5? With 6 backup NPCs?
Start at level 1. 6 players vs. 6 goblins. That's it.
What if i made it 6 minotuars, 3 owlbears and a unified group of goblins (one initiative slot) VS. 6 level 5 PC's?
You know your party far better than we do. You also know how you run monsters at your table, and how your players mount tactics to defeat them. Asking those of us who can only suppose how this will go is just that: asking for someone to guess at how this will go. You are the most capable at providing a definitive answer to your own question. The best suggestion that I can give you is to test the upper limits of what the party can handle. (Note I said test, not surpass)
Both encounters that your posited are deadly by CR - Encounter math. That much is verifiable. In your original encounter, if you deduct the monsters from the encounter equal to the xp of the NPC's with the party (as has been suggested), you come up with a ballpark of 400xp worth of monsters. For context - 8 Goblin vs. a party of 6 LVL 5 PCs. I would assume that this would be a cake walk for the PCs, and also a self-defeating encounter. If you were to apply the same process to the second encounter, you would come up with a ballpark of 4200xp. Again, for context - 3 Minotaur and 3 Owlbear or just at the long end of a hard encounter. If both of these are the singular combat encounter for the adventuring day (budget for 6 lvl 5 - 21,000xp) this will most likely also be a dress rehearsal for an actual combat encounter as it will only cover about 1/4th of the daily budget allowed.
The piece that is wholly missing from all of this conjecture is: How many combat encounters have the party gone through to this point, and how many more of what do they have to go before the end of the chapter? Again, pretty challenging from the armchair DM position to tell you that this will difinitively be a TPK or a breeze.
Lastly, all of this discussion about xp budgets and NPC CR and how many of what don't really matter if you, as the DM, are having a good dice day and the party can't roll above a 4.
ahh i see the misconception here. I have ZERO idea how this party is going to play, it's going to be a first time playing with a group of friends (some of whom i'm not sure have ever played D&D). I will know the class make up of the party but no idea how they play together. So this does feel like the ideal point to ask for armchair DM suggestions, because everyone is going in with roughly an equal level of knowledge of how this will all play out.
If it helps, the party currently consists of 2 Sorcs, 1 warlock, 1 artificer, 1 barb/bard hybrid, and 1 druid
Why on earth are you starting the party at 5th level, especially if they have never played before?
There is a reason you start at level 1: so that players can learn the game. This is going to be a disaster. You don't know how to DM a fight (because you're new to DM'ing), your players don't know how to play their PCs in a fight (because they are new). So instead of using simple level 1 characters you're going in at level 5? With 6 backup NPCs?
Start at level 1. 6 players vs. 6 goblins. That's it.
Because it's going to be a in person one shot, with a group of friends that live 1000+ miles away from me, and who's schedules do not permit us to play a long form campaign via discord/roll20. Your average level 1 "quest" makes for a really dull session when done in a vaccum/ played once every 6-12 months.
My suggestion is to use waves and reinforcements. Set up a situation in which it is reasonable for more combatants to join the fight from adjacent rooms. This lets you do a better job of fine tuning the encounter. It won't turn into a cakewalk if your two sorcerers drop two fireballs on 90% of the opponents in one round since there are more opponents in the wings. On the other hand, if your sorcerers have Tongues and Water Breathing as their prepared spells and are using firebolt to do damage then those reinforcements just don't need to show up at all since you (the DM) are the only one who knows that they might have existed in the first place.
This type of technique allows for a more fine tuned approach to an encounter, especially when you don't know the classes, capabilities of the players and other factors which literally make it impossible to balance the encounter in advance. You need to set the scene in such a way that you can dynamically balance it without it being in any way obvious to the players. (Especially do NOT mention that you are doing so ... as far as the players are concerned the encounter parameters are set in stone from the beginning :) ).
P.S. If you have folks who aren't experienced with 5e running 5th level characters then you are going to have some problems. I'd personally recommend 3rd level characters for a one shot since they have enough capabilities to be interesting (and enough hit points to not die right away) while also not having extra attack and 3rd level spells which are a big bump in power level. It takes more effort for people to learn to play a 5th level character as compared to third level ones since they have more abilities, have to apply an ASI or feat, pick up a significant power boost that makes it more difficult to balance encounters etc
So i got a party of level 5's and they will have half a dozen NPC knights with them.
So the encounter is versus 6 minotaur, 3 bug bear, and half a dozen goblins that will be providing long range cover for the rest of the opponents (they will run away if the players try to engage). The encounter thing says it's a deadly fight, but i've had deadly fights turn into cake walks before....
Same. I'm new to dnd so I cant help you much. But i had a party of 5 level 3 characters that defeated a gang of 6 wererats. You might want to try using the guidelines in the dungeon master's guide. Just use the knights XP value as their hard threshold.
When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
The encounter builder doesn't know how to deal with NPC allies as far as I know. In principle six CR 3 knights trade evenly with six CR 3 MInotaurs, leaving three bugbears and six goblins for the PCs to deal with, which is barely a warmup at level 5.
It's easy, but also a big problem in terms of design, and as you say you're new I'd like to explain why this isn't going to be much fun:
I'm assuming:
First up: Fireball, or similar AoE spells. If you put in lots and lots of enemies, these spells get consistently better up to their area cap. Be wary of that. But this is a minor issue.
Actions Taken by the DM vs. Actions taken by the players
Assuming 4 PCs, you have more NPCs than players. Moreover, each of the knights is a CR3 creature: It is considered a Medium level challenge for 4 x level 3 characters on its own. Four knights is a Deadly encounter for 4 x Level 5 PCs. Six knights and I'd start favouring the knights, unless the PCs were on a long rest. With AC18 and 52 hit points, the knights are going to tank all the damage in the fight, removing the threat, whilst also dealing some decent damage. The knights are going to have more impact than the PCs.
If two PCs are martial classes and have the Extra Attack feature, and two of them are spellcasters and decide to use a cantrip that turn, then the following should happen:
In total, your players - and it's their game to play - make 6 attack rolls, and 6 damage rolls for a total of 12 rolls. The monsters on the other hand make up to 54 dice rolls.
At this point, you're effectively playing the game by yourself. Your players are going to be waiting a long time to get to make another decision. Moreover, NPCs attacking other NPCs is extremely boring to watch. There is nothing fun about the minotaurs and knights hacking away at each other. The PCs are unlikely to be terribly invested into the knights.
So I've explained this in detail not to 'correct' your encounter but to provide guidance on how to design good adventure encounters in general. Try to stick to these guidelines:
For your own encounter:
3 Minotaurs against 4 x level 5 PCs is a Hard encounter, and 4 Minotaurs is deadly. The players will have a much more fun time playing either of those fights than they will watching a fight between NPCs and monsters.
Not sure if this was hit upon previously.
A single deadly encounter per adventuring day (period between long rests) will be a cake walk if your PCs nova all of their resources at that single encounter. If this is what's happening increase the number of combat encounters prior to the finale, or run the finale as waves of pre-fights prior to the finish.
If you are running combats where the monsters are merely standing there and taking a solid beatdown with no response to the PCs, I might suggest letting the monsters run tactics and splitting their initiative rolls up. Maybe not one initiative roll per monster, but one per small tactical unit of 3-5 creatures.
At the end of either of these, if you haven't gotten to or surpassed the xp budget for the adventuring day, your PCs should, at least in theory, be alive, worried, and looking like they took a trip through an industrial stand mixer.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I will say that spending your entire adventuring day budget on a single encounter will probably be excessive, though two encounters each half the daily budget should be okay.
I just wanted to second this comment.
I was in a party of 6 level 6 characters - barbarian, monk, rogue, warlock, druid, wizard - and we were fighting a large group of undead - 10+ ghouls, 10+ ghasts, 8+ wights, at least one wraith. Just the wraith and 6 wights is deadly. Adding 22 more undead on top of that is something like 5x deadly based on adjusted XP. The party used almost all available resources. All the third level slots from the casters, ki etc and we killed about 25 of the undead before taking a strategic retreat. We weren't seriously damaged, the raging barbarian and monk were a little below 1/2 hit points but we had run out of ways to damage the creatures in large groups or mitigate damage against us so we retreated just before the tide was likely to turn since there appeared to be more undead in the wings.
However, the point is, that depending on the party, a group with full resources and hit points (especially in tier 2 and above) can often deal with encounters that are well above deadly if they have a decent tactical situation and are willing to use all their resources.
In your example, I think the encounter is likely to be very easy since there are 6 CR3 knight NPCs as their allies in the fight. Some of the NPCs may die if the opponents focus their attacks but the party is likely to mow down the opposition in most tactical situations.
Yeah. I dont think the players will enjoy a battle where you are making all the rolls. Or you could maybe make the knights guards and maybe take away a couple of minatours. Or even better, that could just be some regular encounter to soften up the players for the final boss.
When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
Maybe the players could run the knights? I've had a campaign (DC- ship fight) where there was a lot of good combatant NPCs and I had my players run them. It was more fun for the players and easier for me.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
The easiest way to handle NPC allies is to just remove them from the battle, and remove a comparable strength worth of enemies.
I get the idea that you want a battle on a grand scale, but I agree with Sanvael that the players are not going to feel very important in a situation where they can sit the whole fight out and still win. NPC combat should generally be offscreen or at least off to the side and just represented by minis engaged in combat that don't actually make any rolls. Keep the spotlight on the PCs.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
What if i made it 6 minotuars, 3 owlbears and a unified group of goblins (one initiative slot) VS. 6 level 5 PC's?
Without allies? Unless they start in favorable conditions (the minotaurs and owlbears are melee brutes, so an encounter starting at long range favors the PCs, particularly if they are also bunched up for convenient area attacks) they probably die. At level 5 a medium encounter for 6 level 5 PCs is about roughly 3 x CR 3. Reasonably fresh PCs can generally handle the equivalent of two medium encounters at once (6 x CR 3), the equivalent of three at once (9 x CR 3) is fairly likely to be a kill, and throwing in a group of goblins is very likely to push it over the edge.
Your original encounter, without the six knights, would likely be pushing the edge of a TPK, it's just that the knights are a giant meat-wall that makes everything much easier.
If the PCs are fresh from a long rest, then they should handle the minotaurs and owlbears in reasonable conditions but as Pantagruel says, the goblins will push them over.
With large numbers of enemies on the opposing side, things get very "swingy." The more dice you're rolling, the more chance of that natural 20 happening, and then happening again.
I really suggest listening to what I said in my first post on this thread about keeping the numbers relatively even. But I don't think you're that interested in learning about how to build encounters since you just cut the knights and then upped the power of some of the other monsters. Learning principles will stand you in much better stead than just changing things at random.
You know your party far better than we do. You also know how you run monsters at your table, and how your players mount tactics to defeat them. Asking those of us who can only suppose how this will go is just that: asking for someone to guess at how this will go. You are the most capable at providing a definitive answer to your own question. The best suggestion that I can give you is to test the upper limits of what the party can handle. (Note I said test, not surpass)
Both encounters that your posited are deadly by CR - Encounter math. That much is verifiable. In your original encounter, if you deduct the monsters from the encounter equal to the xp of the NPC's with the party (as has been suggested), you come up with a ballpark of 400xp worth of monsters. For context - 8 Goblin vs. a party of 6 LVL 5 PCs. I would assume that this would be a cake walk for the PCs, and also a self-defeating encounter. If you were to apply the same process to the second encounter, you would come up with a ballpark of 4200xp. Again, for context - 3 Minotaur and 3 Owlbear or just at the long end of a hard encounter. If both of these are the singular combat encounter for the adventuring day (budget for 6 lvl 5 - 21,000xp) this will most likely also be a dress rehearsal for an actual combat encounter as it will only cover about 1/4th of the daily budget allowed.
The piece that is wholly missing from all of this conjecture is: How many combat encounters have the party gone through to this point, and how many more of what do they have to go before the end of the chapter? Again, pretty challenging from the armchair DM position to tell you that this will difinitively be a TPK or a breeze.
Lastly, all of this discussion about xp budgets and NPC CR and how many of what don't really matter if you, as the DM, are having a good dice day and the party can't roll above a 4.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
For the reasons Kaavel said I can not say if your encounter is balanced.
One thing you could do is find the bad guys split up a bit, close enough that if you all approach one group the others will join them. Then have one knight suggest they take on the minators while the party take on the rest of the bad guys. When the party have defeated their enemies they look over to where the knights, if the party are completely spent they see a knight kill the final minators, if the players had a cake walk they see the minators winning with 2 or three knights unconcious/dead and the party are expected to help them. This enables you to adjust the difficulty on the fly and not have you making nearly all the rolls.
ahh i see the misconception here. I have ZERO idea how this party is going to play, it's going to be a first time playing with a group of friends (some of whom i'm not sure have ever played D&D). I will know the class make up of the party but no idea how they play together. So this does feel like the ideal point to ask for armchair DM suggestions, because everyone is going in with roughly an equal level of knowledge of how this will all play out.
If it helps, the party currently consists of 2 Sorcs, 1 warlock, 1 artificer, 1 barb/bard hybrid, and 1 druid
Why on earth are you starting the party at 5th level, especially if they have never played before?
There is a reason you start at level 1: so that players can learn the game. This is going to be a disaster. You don't know how to DM a fight (because you're new to DM'ing), your players don't know how to play their PCs in a fight (because they are new). So instead of using simple level 1 characters you're going in at level 5? With 6 backup NPCs?
Start at level 1. 6 players vs. 6 goblins. That's it.
Because it's going to be a in person one shot, with a group of friends that live 1000+ miles away from me, and who's schedules do not permit us to play a long form campaign via discord/roll20. Your average level 1 "quest" makes for a really dull session when done in a vaccum/ played once every 6-12 months.
My suggestion is to use waves and reinforcements. Set up a situation in which it is reasonable for more combatants to join the fight from adjacent rooms. This lets you do a better job of fine tuning the encounter. It won't turn into a cakewalk if your two sorcerers drop two fireballs on 90% of the opponents in one round since there are more opponents in the wings. On the other hand, if your sorcerers have Tongues and Water Breathing as their prepared spells and are using firebolt to do damage then those reinforcements just don't need to show up at all since you (the DM) are the only one who knows that they might have existed in the first place.
This type of technique allows for a more fine tuned approach to an encounter, especially when you don't know the classes, capabilities of the players and other factors which literally make it impossible to balance the encounter in advance. You need to set the scene in such a way that you can dynamically balance it without it being in any way obvious to the players. (Especially do NOT mention that you are doing so ... as far as the players are concerned the encounter parameters are set in stone from the beginning :) ).
P.S. If you have folks who aren't experienced with 5e running 5th level characters then you are going to have some problems. I'd personally recommend 3rd level characters for a one shot since they have enough capabilities to be interesting (and enough hit points to not die right away) while also not having extra attack and 3rd level spells which are a big bump in power level. It takes more effort for people to learn to play a 5th level character as compared to third level ones since they have more abilities, have to apply an ASI or feat, pick up a significant power boost that makes it more difficult to balance encounters etc