My players are about to seige into a shallow sealed off portion of the Underdark where the villains are trying to perform a ritual to open up a dimensional portal to the elemental planes. This is going to be a combat heavy dungeon with some enviornmental navigation involved.
It's a 5 persob party that picked up some NPCs related to a seperate quest whonare helping and 3 npcs from the town they're doing this for. How would you manage fights on this scale to keep things moving and also still challenge the players.
Currently I have 2 mook fights with just swarms of stuff attacking them. A fight with genuine minions of their enemies. A dual mini boss fight thay also has some minions thrown in.
Roll initiative once for all the NPCs as a group, and for groups of similar enemies. Skip damage rolls (use the average) for NPCs and enemies. If using large numbers of really weak enemies, use the optional rules in the DMG Chapter 8 and 9 for Handling Mobs and Cleaving Through Enemies
create quick statblocks for the NPCs and hand them to the players with a "Have fun" note attached. If the players want to involve them in the ongoing arc, then the responsibility shifts. I don't mind handling the NPCs, it can be fun making them do irrational things if they aren't the fighting type, but I also have the entire army of baddies to take care of too.
My players are about to seige into a shallow sealed off portion of the Underdark where the villains are trying to perform a ritual to open up a dimensional portal to the elemental planes. This is going to be a combat heavy dungeon with some enviornmental navigation involved.
It's a 5 persob party that picked up some NPCs related to a seperate quest whonare helping and 3 npcs from the town they're doing this for. How would you manage fights on this scale to keep things moving and also still challenge the players.
Currently I have 2 mook fights with just swarms of stuff attacking them. A fight with genuine minions of their enemies. A dual mini boss fight thay also has some minions thrown in.
1 more minion fight.
The final Boss.
Roll initiative once for all the NPCs as a group, and for groups of similar enemies. Skip damage rolls (use the average) for NPCs and enemies. If using large numbers of really weak enemies, use the optional rules in the DMG Chapter 8 and 9 for Handling Mobs and Cleaving Through Enemies
The Forum Infestation (TM)
or,
create quick statblocks for the NPCs and hand them to the players with a "Have fun" note attached. If the players want to involve them in the ongoing arc, then the responsibility shifts. I don't mind handling the NPCs, it can be fun making them do irrational things if they aren't the fighting type, but I also have the entire army of baddies to take care of too.