In my homebrew, the players failed to stop a necromance from creating an undead army, which he promptly set on the capital of the continent. I was wondering how you would run a party vs a large army of undead skeletons raiding a city.
Take a cr 15 mob with multiattack, add resistance to physical damage, imunity to conditions and vulnerability to AoE damage. Reduce the number of attacks as the hp of the mob go down and rename it into a swarm of ghouls/scelletons/zombies
Also very impirtant to have the civilians runing around or the citywatch mixed inbetween, to avoid large scale magic attacks like tzumanies or earthquakes. On the other hand, feel free to let the BBEG use large scale poison gass attacks.
The Divine Contention adventure has a scenario very similar to what you described, except balanced for a party of 11th level. You can check the particular encounter out here:
1. The characters are swarmed under and captured. Proceed to escape plot.
2. The skeletons are raiding but have no intentions of occupying the city. Determine the numbers and ask your players for key locations and plans on how to protect those locations from the attacking army.
3. The skeletons and the necromancer want to murder everything that moves. Ask the player characters how they plan to escape the city or how they plan to create defensible locations. Defending a sieged city can be staged as a number of specific encounters - clearing a gate that's being overrun long enough to repair, striking and defeating a key power skeleton, organizing the local folks and rallying them as a fighting force, and so on. Escaping could be alternating between just running (chase encounter), hiding, (stealth encounter), and breaking through (combat encounter).
Use low level stuff and treat them as minions from 4E. You might want to up their to hit modifier some if you want, as well as the damage a bit. Toss in some higher level stuff that can offer some increased threat. You will want something that will hit harder then your minions. Adjust hit points if you want. Most likely you will want to go down some. This way the players can still move through them a a quicker pace.
As BrokemDM suggests, minions rule is great. And have them deal average damage on a hit. No need to track hitpoints or damage rolls. Then just roll a ton of d20s and any roll above a certain score does X damage. Criticals do 2X damage. Let the players mow through them. Feel free to include some lair actions as well like another undead might wander into the fray or take a swipe at a player before fading away back into the larger battle.
What I have done in the past to handle combat that took place during a larger battle was to run a skills challenge. This allowed the players to use whatever they are good at and then at the end of it, you have a smaller traditional fight scene to represent the battle winding down. If the players pass the skills challenge, they go into the final fight strong. If they fail the skills challenge, then they go into the final fight weaker. In my case, we had a party of five level 6 players and, had they failed the skills challenge, I would have imposed a burden on them that they could distribute as they saw fit. I'll throw the details for my battle into a spoiler tag.
Skill Challenge: Battle commences
Just as the dawn begins to lighten the black smudge of night along the eastern mountain ridge to an ashen gray, the quiet of night is broken by the drums of war. Shouts on the wall confirm what you all already know. Enemy troops are on the move and the temple is under attack.
Annemarie bursts into the room the room and greets the party tersely. If they scored at least 5 successes in the previous skill challenge, she also gives them her appreciation. “Thank you for everything you've already done to get us ready for battle. Our defenses are much stronger because of your hard work and if we survive this, we won't forget what you have done. Grab your gear and take up your positions. The enemy is on the move. It's going to be a hard day.”
Before she can finish the sentence, the temple echoes with the deep boom of the first ram strike against the temple gates. As you rush out into the courtyard, you see Paladins along the walls shouting and engaging unseen enemies outside. Other paladins are tending to the gates to keep it reinforced and shut for as long as possible. Now, the characters must help keep the gates shut and help repel the enemy for as long as possible.
To successfully complete this skill challenge, the characters must make three successful ability checks before earning three failures. They can use any ability score paired with any skill or tool proficiency they wish, but a character cannot use the same ability score or proficiency two turns in a row. The DC of this ability check starts at 24 but is decreased by 1 for each success the party earned in the previous challenge. Additionally, at the start of every turn after the first, the DC increases by 1 as the storm increases in intensity.
If your players seem stuck or can’t think of a good action to take during this skill challenge, you can suggest some course of action, and figure out what a good ability score and proficiency combination would be. A character who wants to make a Strength (Athletics) check could reinforce the door. A character who wants to make a Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) check could help direct troops to the areas of greatest need.
Success: Hold the line!
If the characters earn three successes before three failures, the gates of the temple hold and the forces on the wall have weathered the storm of the assault, albeit with some losses. The enemy falls back out of range to decide what to do next. Annemarie finds the party and gives an update. The defenders were able to destroy at least half the undead army from the looks of things and the mercenary forces who remain are doubting the promise of easy loot and money that they had bargained for. Now is the time to press the counterattack. The two dozen or so remaining paladins are riding high on their victory and now is their best chance to open the gates and crush their wounded foes. The party has used four level 1 spell slots, three level 2 spell slots, and one level three spell slot. The party is free to distribute this burden among themselves as they see fit.
Failure: There are too many of them!
If the characters earn three failures before three successes, the casualties among the defenders is much heavier than expected and the gates finally give way to the overwhelming assault. The army of the undead pours into the courtyard along with mercenary forces shouting and fighting for gold and loot. Paladins abandon their positions along the wall to take up melee combat in the yard below. A pitched battle ensues, and the outcome is not at all clear right now. The party has suffered 100 damage and has used five level 1 spell slots, four level 2 spell slots, and two level three spell slots. The party is free to distribute this burden among themselves as they see fit. Additionally, the sorcerer has used two sorcery points, the cleric has used one channel divinity, the bard has used one inspiration, and the blood hunter has used one crimson rite.
At the end of the fight, the party gave me feedback that they really enjoyed running the fight this way.
In my homebrew, the players failed to stop a necromance from creating an undead army, which he promptly set on the capital of the continent. I was wondering how you would run a party vs a large army of undead skeletons raiding a city.
How large is large? A legitimately large army is in the thousands and will be pretty unplayable (given D&D mechanics, the main threat will be a storm of arrows blotting out the sun).
In any case, the big problem here is that a reasonable sized raiding party for hitting a capital city is thousands. For a battlefield on that scale I'd just put a fairly small number of skeletons on the map (10-20, which get replaced every round unless someone puts up a damaging zone) while the PCs take on a small number of equally elite monsters and the mass combat is going on off-map.
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Fellow DM'S I require aid.
In my homebrew, the players failed to stop a necromance from creating an undead army, which he promptly set on the capital of the continent. I was wondering how you would run a party vs a large army of undead skeletons raiding a city.
I would homebrew swarms of undead.
Take a cr 15 mob with multiattack, add resistance to physical damage, imunity to conditions and vulnerability to AoE damage. Reduce the number of attacks as the hp of the mob go down and rename it into a swarm of ghouls/scelletons/zombies
Throw in a giant skelleton or something
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]Also very impirtant to have the civilians runing around or the citywatch mixed inbetween, to avoid large scale magic attacks like tzumanies or earthquakes. On the other hand, feel free to let the BBEG use large scale poison gass attacks.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]The Divine Contention adventure has a scenario very similar to what you described, except balanced for a party of 11th level. You can check the particular encounter out here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dc/leilon-besieged
1. The characters are swarmed under and captured. Proceed to escape plot.
2. The skeletons are raiding but have no intentions of occupying the city. Determine the numbers and ask your players for key locations and plans on how to protect those locations from the attacking army.
3. The skeletons and the necromancer want to murder everything that moves. Ask the player characters how they plan to escape the city or how they plan to create defensible locations. Defending a sieged city can be staged as a number of specific encounters - clearing a gate that's being overrun long enough to repair, striking and defeating a key power skeleton, organizing the local folks and rallying them as a fighting force, and so on. Escaping could be alternating between just running (chase encounter), hiding, (stealth encounter), and breaking through (combat encounter).
Use low level stuff and treat them as minions from 4E. You might want to up their to hit modifier some if you want, as well as the damage a bit. Toss in some higher level stuff that can offer some increased threat. You will want something that will hit harder then your minions. Adjust hit points if you want. Most likely you will want to go down some. This way the players can still move through them a a quicker pace.
As BrokemDM suggests, minions rule is great. And have them deal average damage on a hit. No need to track hitpoints or damage rolls. Then just roll a ton of d20s and any roll above a certain score does X damage. Criticals do 2X damage. Let the players mow through them. Feel free to include some lair actions as well like another undead might wander into the fray or take a swipe at a player before fading away back into the larger battle.
What I have done in the past to handle combat that took place during a larger battle was to run a skills challenge. This allowed the players to use whatever they are good at and then at the end of it, you have a smaller traditional fight scene to represent the battle winding down. If the players pass the skills challenge, they go into the final fight strong. If they fail the skills challenge, then they go into the final fight weaker. In my case, we had a party of five level 6 players and, had they failed the skills challenge, I would have imposed a burden on them that they could distribute as they saw fit. I'll throw the details for my battle into a spoiler tag.
Skill Challenge: Battle commences
Just as the dawn begins to lighten the black smudge of night along the eastern mountain ridge to an ashen gray, the quiet of night is broken by the drums of war. Shouts on the wall confirm what you all already know. Enemy troops are on the move and the temple is under attack.
Annemarie bursts into the room the room and greets the party tersely. If they scored at least 5 successes in the previous skill challenge, she also gives them her appreciation. “Thank you for everything you've already done to get us ready for battle. Our defenses are much stronger because of your hard work and if we survive this, we won't forget what you have done. Grab your gear and take up your positions. The enemy is on the move. It's going to be a hard day.”
Before she can finish the sentence, the temple echoes with the deep boom of the first ram strike against the temple gates. As you rush out into the courtyard, you see Paladins along the walls shouting and engaging unseen enemies outside. Other paladins are tending to the gates to keep it reinforced and shut for as long as possible. Now, the characters must help keep the gates shut and help repel the enemy for as long as possible.
To successfully complete this skill challenge, the characters must make three successful ability checks before earning three failures. They can use any ability score paired with any skill or tool proficiency they wish, but a character cannot use the same ability score or proficiency two turns in a row. The DC of this ability check starts at 24 but is decreased by 1 for each success the party earned in the previous challenge. Additionally, at the start of every turn after the first, the DC increases by 1 as the storm increases in intensity.
If your players seem stuck or can’t think of a good action to take during this skill challenge, you can suggest some course of action, and figure out what a good ability score and proficiency combination would be. A character who wants to make a Strength (Athletics) check could reinforce the door. A character who wants to make a Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) check could help direct troops to the areas of greatest need.
Success: Hold the line!
If the characters earn three successes before three failures, the gates of the temple hold and the forces on the wall have weathered the storm of the assault, albeit with some losses. The enemy falls back out of range to decide what to do next. Annemarie finds the party and gives an update. The defenders were able to destroy at least half the undead army from the looks of things and the mercenary forces who remain are doubting the promise of easy loot and money that they had bargained for. Now is the time to press the counterattack. The two dozen or so remaining paladins are riding high on their victory and now is their best chance to open the gates and crush their wounded foes. The party has used four level 1 spell slots, three level 2 spell slots, and one level three spell slot. The party is free to distribute this burden among themselves as they see fit.
Failure: There are too many of them!
If the characters earn three failures before three successes, the casualties among the defenders is much heavier than expected and the gates finally give way to the overwhelming assault. The army of the undead pours into the courtyard along with mercenary forces shouting and fighting for gold and loot. Paladins abandon their positions along the wall to take up melee combat in the yard below. A pitched battle ensues, and the outcome is not at all clear right now. The party has suffered 100 damage and has used five level 1 spell slots, four level 2 spell slots, and two level three spell slots. The party is free to distribute this burden among themselves as they see fit. Additionally, the sorcerer has used two sorcery points, the cleric has used one channel divinity, the bard has used one inspiration, and the blood hunter has used one crimson rite.
At the end of the fight, the party gave me feedback that they really enjoyed running the fight this way.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
How large is large? A legitimately large army is in the thousands and will be pretty unplayable (given D&D mechanics, the main threat will be a storm of arrows blotting out the sun).
Well, imagine a raid, but 5 times bigger. If that helps, or the army at the end if DIvine Contention if you need another refrence point
Neither reference point helps.
In any case, the big problem here is that a reasonable sized raiding party for hitting a capital city is thousands. For a battlefield on that scale I'd just put a fairly small number of skeletons on the map (10-20, which get replaced every round unless someone puts up a damaging zone) while the PCs take on a small number of equally elite monsters and the mass combat is going on off-map.