I am putting together a section in my campaign where I intend for the party to have to try and escape a labyrinth, whilst battling off a horde of demons which will swarm at them from the depths. The imae I want to portray is one of an insurmountable force which should be escaped from, but I know that D&D players tend more toward heroics.
How do you balance an endless swarm? Do you base it on number of rounds fighting them off until the task is complete?
How do you balance an endless swarm? Do you base it on number of rounds fighting them off until the task is complete?
What do you mean by balance? If the PCs have to navigate a reasonably complex labyrinth, I would probably have the swarm be slow enough that you're just getting distinct encounters every so often, an Easy encounter every minute will make the PCs feel powerful but will actually drain them pretty fast.
I would make it absolutely clear through my description that there is absolutely no way that the party can win that combat and have them make and take attacks as part of a series of skills challenges to escape. Every failure of a skill challenge results in a mini combat against a tiny fraction of the hoard, every successful skill challenge results in staying one step ahead of the swarm. If you plan it right and maybe hotfix things a little as you go, the party should escape by the skin of their teeth with only a handful of HP remaining.
Don’t dance around the subject. Explicitly state “you are going to die if you get caught in this. Your skin will be flayed from your flesh. Your bones will be cracked open and the marrow sucked out. Your eyeballs will be roasted on spits and your tongues threaded on necklaces. Run.”
As for the swarm itself, you can treat it as a sort of chase. Though it’s not a particularly straightforward one, since it’s a maze. I would say that you ask the party to choose someone to lead the party through the maze, and give them something like ten seconds to choose. To keep the tension up, you want a lot of speedy snap judgements and consequences if the party takes too long. Each round, the leader can roll a… probably an intelligence(survival) check would make the most sense to me, though the players are welcome to be creative.
On a success vs. a static DC, the party manages to make progress through the maze, while avoiding looping into the demons. On a failure, they’ll have to push through a group of demons. I wouldn’t expressly make the demons individual creatures here, just a series of attacks, or a health pool the party needs to blast through. Maybe a few grapple onto party members and they need to shake them off. The point is that the party’s goal isn’t to kill the demons, it’s to blast a hole through the horde so they can escape.
Now, at the same time, I’d also have the demons be making checks. I would give them several abilities that represent a group of demons breaking off ahead of the horde, or navigating down an opposite path in order to cut off the party. Some examples could be a ranged acid spit attack from the horde that maybe deals ongoing damage or a status effect until scraped off. Maybe a few demons break off and grapple onto the party, slowing them down and causing them to be directly attacked by the horde if they don’t break the grapple within the round. Maybe some lesser flying demons that move ahead, and have to be shot down lest they continue to stab at the party.
Each of these abilities would be locked behind an intelligence, strength, or dex check, depending on what ability would need to be used to achieve this advantage over the party. The DC could either be set based off of the power of the ability, or based off of the party’s checks. Every time an ability is used, it’s once again locked, and when it’s locked the horde makes a check on its initiative count to unlock it. Ideally one would happen every two or three rounds.
After a certain number of successful navigation checks, the party is free!
Im not saying “this is the best and only way to do it,” this is just probably how I’d run this encounter. Feel free to steal or tweak and of the ideas, I enjoyed just spitballing to come up with them.
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"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
You could make a minigame out of it. I participated in a few and they are always smooth and satisfying if they are kept rare.
So you are running through a labyrinthine palace to escape inevitable death. Enemies are swarming and gnawing at your heels.
Each player takes turns with Ability Checks. You can use whatever skill you want as long as you can describe how you can use it to get your party out of there. You can only use each skill once. Altogether you make 10 skill checks. 3 can fail. They get increasingly more difficult. Or something, don't remember the details. You can also cast a spell. If you use a spell, you add +1 for each level of the spell.
You could make a minigame out of it. I participated in a few and they are always smooth and satisfying if they are kept rare.
So you are running through a labyrinthine palace to escape inevitable death. Enemies are swarming and gnawing at your heels.
Each player takes turns with Ability Checks. You can use whatever skill you want as long as you can describe how you can use it to get your party out of there. You can only use each skill once. Altogether you make 10 skill checks. 3 can fail. They get increasingly more difficult. Or something, don't remember the details. You can also cast a spell. If you use a spell, you add +1 for each level of the spell.
Something like that.
You essentially just described a version of a Skills Challenge. However, in this case I wouldn’t make it that 3 individual fails means the whole challenge is failed because that’s a setup for a TPK. That’s why I suggested having a mini combat for each failed check so they can fail more checks but still have a chance to “win the challenge” by escaping the maze. They just have to pass X number of checks (maybe 7?) before they die.
Then may I suggest a swarm mechanic that I brewed for goblin swarms.
I didn't want to buff my goblins but the players were over lvl 10, so goblins weren't much of a challenge.
So I gave them a Swarm Tactics feature. If they attack the same target, they get to roll with advantage and they get one multiattack. They Also get +1 to hit and +1 to damage per goblin in the swarm. They can be in each other's space and your space, literally swarming and stabbing.
This way I threw like 20 goblins at them, but only rolled 4x2 attacks per turn when I split them into 4 swarms.
Each had a +5 to their default hit bonus and damage.
But oh boy it was satisfying when the players used fireballs and one shotted 10 goblins. 😄
You essentially just described a version of a Skills Challenge. However, in this case I wouldn’t make it that 3 individual fails means the whole challenge is failed because that’s a setup for a TPK.
Or if it's too easy, a setup for boring. I would be tempted by a series of X challenges -- if you succeed, you get through without a fight, otherwise you're assumed to still overcome the challenge, but it takes long enough that something catches up with you and beats on you for a bit.
You do skill challenges in running sections failures effect enemy numbers in fights and possibly lead to damage to players as they go. Every once in a while you lock them down in a small room where only a trickle of enemies come in for some combat while they have to solve some puzzle or something. You know they run, lock a door behind them a couple come through vents they fight while some one unlocks the next door etc...
The trick to making players run is that it's easier to run when not in combat and everyone is alive but something needs to die or get very close to death to make them understand the threat.
You can kill an NPC the more powerful seeming that npc the better. For example a guardian of the maze like a dragon or minotaur may get absolutely destroyed by the demons in front of the players.
You can give them a fight with the same creatures before hand that they will struggle with then introduce a larger number later that they know they wont be able to handle.
Give the combat breaks as in let them fully kill all those that are alive before sending more and or give them some kind of signal that more are coming for example have a massive hoard start off a fair distance away. Those breaks form opportunities to run.
You essentially just described a version of a Skills Challenge. However, in this case I wouldn’t make it that 3 individual fails means the whole challenge is failed because that’s a setup for a TPK.
Or if it's too easy, a setup for boring. I would be tempted by a series of X challenges -- if you succeed, you get through without a fight, otherwise you're assumed to still overcome the challenge, but it takes long enough that something catches up with you and beats on you for a bit.
Thank you all for the responses and discussion! From this, my current thoughts for the mechanics of this are:
1: Foreshadowing. The feel I want is the party fleeing through the darkness in a natural cave, so I need to give them a route to find their wa back - even if they do not realise I'm doing it! To this end I will descibe rock features to them as they descend, which they can find themselves looking for on the way back. This should test them on how much they are paying attention! Things like a cluster of stalacmite pillars which sparkle with golden pyrite, or a waterfall, or an echoing chamber. That sort of thing.
2: Chase. I am thinking that the speed at which the party moves, and the success rate of their skill checks, will determine how much they need to fight off the horde as they flee. Pulling numbers off the top of my head, for a party of level 10s:
The horde is 60ft. behind them.
If they succeed on a challenge, they do not get closer.
If they fail, then the horde moves 10ft. closer.
If they kill 10 of the horde, then the horde moves 10ft. backward.
If they do not dash, then the horde moves 30ft. closer.
Each time the horde moves closer, there is a combat, as well as a minimum over the rounds.
Initiative is going to be quick-paced, if you take too long describing it or try to be too fancy, the horde will get closer.
How large the combat is depnds on the proximity of the horde; 50ft: 3 enemies. 40ft: 6 enemies. 30ft: 9 enemies. 20ft:12 enemies. 10ft: 15 enemies. 0ft: Fight for your life!
Alternatively, I can just use the movement speed of the monsters and provide challenges which tke time to achieve. The Horde will move as one on one initiative roll, for simplicity of running. I will attempt to make a challenge for each of the characters, EG a strength one for the barbarian, a speed one for the monk, an arcana one for the artificer, and so on. They might take more than one round, and stop the party short. The issue here is the size of the map I would need to make for them, and whether it would be worth it vs theater of the mind for the one above.
Definitely thinking I'll run old horde mechanics where any hit on the monsters is a kill. Also thinking that I will have any damage of 10+ overspill, so 11-20 kills 2, 21-30 kills 3, and so on, just to make the powerful stuff feel a bit better. AOE will be very effective, naturally! I am leaning towards theater of the mind for the most part now, as level 10 characters will have many tricks to work with and maps fall down a little at that point!
3: Grappling Combat. The horde will try to grab the characters and slow them down. This is much more concerning than a few HP hitting the wind behind them!
I am putting together a section in my campaign where I intend for the party to have to try and escape a labyrinth, whilst battling off a horde of demons which will swarm at them from the depths. The imae I want to portray is one of an insurmountable force which should be escaped from, but I know that D&D players tend more toward heroics.
How do you balance an endless swarm? Do you base it on number of rounds fighting them off until the task is complete?
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What do you mean by balance? If the PCs have to navigate a reasonably complex labyrinth, I would probably have the swarm be slow enough that you're just getting distinct encounters every so often, an Easy encounter every minute will make the PCs feel powerful but will actually drain them pretty fast.
I would make it absolutely clear through my description that there is absolutely no way that the party can win that combat and have them make and take attacks as part of a series of skills challenges to escape. Every failure of a skill challenge results in a mini combat against a tiny fraction of the hoard, every successful skill challenge results in staying one step ahead of the swarm. If you plan it right and maybe hotfix things a little as you go, the party should escape by the skin of their teeth with only a handful of HP remaining.
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Don’t dance around the subject. Explicitly state “you are going to die if you get caught in this. Your skin will be flayed from your flesh. Your bones will be cracked open and the marrow sucked out. Your eyeballs will be roasted on spits and your tongues threaded on necklaces. Run.”
As for the swarm itself, you can treat it as a sort of chase. Though it’s not a particularly straightforward one, since it’s a maze. I would say that you ask the party to choose someone to lead the party through the maze, and give them something like ten seconds to choose. To keep the tension up, you want a lot of speedy snap judgements and consequences if the party takes too long. Each round, the leader can roll a… probably an intelligence(survival) check would make the most sense to me, though the players are welcome to be creative.
On a success vs. a static DC, the party manages to make progress through the maze, while avoiding looping into the demons. On a failure, they’ll have to push through a group of demons. I wouldn’t expressly make the demons individual creatures here, just a series of attacks, or a health pool the party needs to blast through. Maybe a few grapple onto party members and they need to shake them off. The point is that the party’s goal isn’t to kill the demons, it’s to blast a hole through the horde so they can escape.
Now, at the same time, I’d also have the demons be making checks. I would give them several abilities that represent a group of demons breaking off ahead of the horde, or navigating down an opposite path in order to cut off the party. Some examples could be a ranged acid spit attack from the horde that maybe deals ongoing damage or a status effect until scraped off. Maybe a few demons break off and grapple onto the party, slowing them down and causing them to be directly attacked by the horde if they don’t break the grapple within the round. Maybe some lesser flying demons that move ahead, and have to be shot down lest they continue to stab at the party.
Each of these abilities would be locked behind an intelligence, strength, or dex check, depending on what ability would need to be used to achieve this advantage over the party. The DC could either be set based off of the power of the ability, or based off of the party’s checks. Every time an ability is used, it’s once again locked, and when it’s locked the horde makes a check on its initiative count to unlock it. Ideally one would happen every two or three rounds.
After a certain number of successful navigation checks, the party is free!
Im not saying “this is the best and only way to do it,” this is just probably how I’d run this encounter. Feel free to steal or tweak and of the ideas, I enjoyed just spitballing to come up with them.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
You could make a minigame out of it. I participated in a few and they are always smooth and satisfying if they are kept rare.
So you are running through a labyrinthine palace to escape inevitable death. Enemies are swarming and gnawing at your heels.
Each player takes turns with Ability Checks. You can use whatever skill you want as long as you can describe how you can use it to get your party out of there. You can only use each skill once. Altogether you make 10 skill checks. 3 can fail. They get increasingly more difficult. Or something, don't remember the details. You can also cast a spell. If you use a spell, you add +1 for each level of the spell.
Something like that.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
You essentially just described a version of a Skills Challenge. However, in this case I wouldn’t make it that 3 individual fails means the whole challenge is failed because that’s a setup for a TPK. That’s why I suggested having a mini combat for each failed check so they can fail more checks but still have a chance to “win the challenge” by escaping the maze. They just have to pass X number of checks (maybe 7?) before they die.
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Then may I suggest a swarm mechanic that I brewed for goblin swarms.
I didn't want to buff my goblins but the players were over lvl 10, so goblins weren't much of a challenge.
So I gave them a Swarm Tactics feature. If they attack the same target, they get to roll with advantage and they get one multiattack. They Also get +1 to hit and +1 to damage per goblin in the swarm. They can be in each other's space and your space, literally swarming and stabbing.
This way I threw like 20 goblins at them, but only rolled 4x2 attacks per turn when I split them into 4 swarms.
Each had a +5 to their default hit bonus and damage.
But oh boy it was satisfying when the players used fireballs and one shotted 10 goblins. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
I love making swarms of individual creatures like goblins or skeletons. And there are some lower CR demons that could be swarmed.
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Or if it's too easy, a setup for boring. I would be tempted by a series of X challenges -- if you succeed, you get through without a fight, otherwise you're assumed to still overcome the challenge, but it takes long enough that something catches up with you and beats on you for a bit.
I mean, you can run it like a video game level.
You do skill challenges in running sections failures effect enemy numbers in fights and possibly lead to damage to players as they go. Every once in a while you lock them down in a small room where only a trickle of enemies come in for some combat while they have to solve some puzzle or something. You know they run, lock a door behind them a couple come through vents they fight while some one unlocks the next door etc...
The trick to making players run is that it's easier to run when not in combat and everyone is alive but something needs to die or get very close to death to make them understand the threat.
Precisely
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Thank you all for the responses and discussion! From this, my current thoughts for the mechanics of this are:
1: Foreshadowing. The feel I want is the party fleeing through the darkness in a natural cave, so I need to give them a route to find their wa back - even if they do not realise I'm doing it! To this end I will descibe rock features to them as they descend, which they can find themselves looking for on the way back. This should test them on how much they are paying attention! Things like a cluster of stalacmite pillars which sparkle with golden pyrite, or a waterfall, or an echoing chamber. That sort of thing.
2: Chase. I am thinking that the speed at which the party moves, and the success rate of their skill checks, will determine how much they need to fight off the horde as they flee. Pulling numbers off the top of my head, for a party of level 10s:
Alternatively, I can just use the movement speed of the monsters and provide challenges which tke time to achieve. The Horde will move as one on one initiative roll, for simplicity of running. I will attempt to make a challenge for each of the characters, EG a strength one for the barbarian, a speed one for the monk, an arcana one for the artificer, and so on. They might take more than one round, and stop the party short. The issue here is the size of the map I would need to make for them, and whether it would be worth it vs theater of the mind for the one above.
Definitely thinking I'll run old horde mechanics where any hit on the monsters is a kill. Also thinking that I will have any damage of 10+ overspill, so 11-20 kills 2, 21-30 kills 3, and so on, just to make the powerful stuff feel a bit better. AOE will be very effective, naturally! I am leaning towards theater of the mind for the most part now, as level 10 characters will have many tricks to work with and maps fall down a little at that point!
3: Grappling Combat. The horde will try to grab the characters and slow them down. This is much more concerning than a few HP hitting the wind behind them!
I will expand on this as I ruminate further!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
If their low level having a balor crawl out of the Portal normally gets My players to run.