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.
So your idea for how to make it fun of them is to put them in a game where a lot is going on, and they barely understand anything that is going on, but in order for any of it to make sense they need to know exactly what is going on?
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
this might be a better idea. It does make me have to run a different set up for what they would be doing, i feel like the minotaur trade caravan isn't really a level 3 party activity. To many "high" level opponents and not enough resources to justify the fight unless i REALLY tenderize the enemy before hand.
I think if i can convince them to run level 3 characters, i'll probably put them up against a town full of "bandits" with a surprise Ogre fight that starts a couple of rounds in. Figure the largeness of the town makes AoE less of a nightmare for the enemies to fight against, and if they are smart (which I plan for them to be) they would use the cover and lay of the land to force a lot of difficult engagements against the party.
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So your idea for how to make it fun of them is to put them in a game where a lot is going on, and they barely understand anything that is going on, but in order for any of it to make sense they need to know exactly what is going on?
Either start them at level 1 or don't play.
this might be a better idea. It does make me have to run a different set up for what they would be doing, i feel like the minotaur trade caravan isn't really a level 3 party activity. To many "high" level opponents and not enough resources to justify the fight unless i REALLY tenderize the enemy before hand.
I think if i can convince them to run level 3 characters, i'll probably put them up against a town full of "bandits" with a surprise Ogre fight that starts a couple of rounds in. Figure the largeness of the town makes AoE less of a nightmare for the enemies to fight against, and if they are smart (which I plan for them to be) they would use the cover and lay of the land to force a lot of difficult engagements against the party.