Currently my players are trying to break into an enemy stronghold which has a lot of guards. I designed it so that they couldn't really charge in headfirst and would have to sneak around a bit instead trying to avoid a fight (otherwise they would be overwhelmed). However, instead they've decided to try tackle the problem head-on by calling on their NPC allies and splitting them into groups to fight on their behalf and draw some of the heat off them. They're level 12 and they have a variety of allies they can potentially draw on. I don't mind actually them trying to do this. However, I'm not sure how I should work out who wins amongst the NPC groups. I'm thinking maybe I could so something akin to risk - assign dice based on a party's strength and have the players roll to see who wins, but that feels like it could get complicated.
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? How have (would) you run such situation? Or any advice at all? Thanks in advance.
I generally just remove enemy strength roughly equal to the strength of the allies the PCs brought to the fight, and then use whatever is left against the PCs, and use the outcome of the fight against the PCs as a proxy for the outcome of the battle as a whole.
If you want to leave it to chance, and resolve it live and in front of your players you can bundle the NPC groups into Swarms. One stat block that represents each group and their associated abilities. Whenever two of these NPC Swarms clash you can describe the impact of their attacks, etc. in a group fashion even though there's only one hit roll, saving throw, etc.
"You look across the Bailey and see your allies fighting guards on the other rampart. It's as chaotic there as it is for you against your foes, but they... <rolls> seem to be holding their own."
You only need to roll dice for combats the PCs are directly engaged in. Have the battles happening on separate 'maps' and when the PCs battle is over, so is the NPC combat. You can just choose who survives in line with what you want the story to be.
Alternatively, if they'd enjoy it and there are few enough NPCs that it's a reasonable combat (e.g. 5 NPCs rather than 500), you can give out a stat block sheet for each NPC to a player and let them run the combat.
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Currently my players are trying to break into an enemy stronghold which has a lot of guards. I designed it so that they couldn't really charge in headfirst and would have to sneak around a bit instead trying to avoid a fight (otherwise they would be overwhelmed). However, instead they've decided to try tackle the problem head-on by calling on their NPC allies and splitting them into groups to fight on their behalf and draw some of the heat off them. They're level 12 and they have a variety of allies they can potentially draw on. I don't mind actually them trying to do this. However, I'm not sure how I should work out who wins amongst the NPC groups. I'm thinking maybe I could so something akin to risk - assign dice based on a party's strength and have the players roll to see who wins, but that feels like it could get complicated.
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? How have (would) you run such situation? Or any advice at all? Thanks in advance.
I generally just remove enemy strength roughly equal to the strength of the allies the PCs brought to the fight, and then use whatever is left against the PCs, and use the outcome of the fight against the PCs as a proxy for the outcome of the battle as a whole.
Oh that's a very efficient and simple method. Thank you.
If you want to leave it to chance, and resolve it live and in front of your players you can bundle the NPC groups into Swarms. One stat block that represents each group and their associated abilities. Whenever two of these NPC Swarms clash you can describe the impact of their attacks, etc. in a group fashion even though there's only one hit roll, saving throw, etc.
"You look across the Bailey and see your allies fighting guards on the other rampart. It's as chaotic there as it is for you against your foes, but they... <rolls> seem to be holding their own."
You only need to roll dice for combats the PCs are directly engaged in. Have the battles happening on separate 'maps' and when the PCs battle is over, so is the NPC combat. You can just choose who survives in line with what you want the story to be.
Alternatively, if they'd enjoy it and there are few enough NPCs that it's a reasonable combat (e.g. 5 NPCs rather than 500), you can give out a stat block sheet for each NPC to a player and let them run the combat.