Just before assaulting a Werewolf Den in a wolf infested woods, one of my players accidentally picked up and used a perfume that permanently attracts wolves and gives +2 to persuasion (from a loot table!)

They are a Paladin with high con, early plate and Heavy Armour Master so the best player for that to be a problem but I was just to work out how many wolves I can or should throw at the party which brought out the following:

V.S Wolves Evie’s Hit Points: 44 (77.5 effect)

+20HP Lay on Hands

+13.5HP Crystal Blade

But also has Heavy Armour Master (HAM)

AC: 21

4x Shield (26 ac) and/or 3 shield of faith

Dodge: no Adv

 

+4 to hit vs 21 ac 15% hit chance

+5 to hit vs 21 ac 20% hit chance

Worth just using Shield of Faith

 

Wolf (Pack Tactics) 12ac 11hp +2 dex

Bite +4 (1d6+2 -2 from HAM)  3.5 damage

Crit (5% = 0.35) 7 damage

Hit on 17-20 (21ac) = 0.88 average damage

Hit on 19-20 (23ac) = 0.53 average damage

So with shield of faith it would take 37 wolves to take down Evie in four turns.

 

Dire Wolf (Pack Tactics) 14ac 22hp +2 dex

Bite +5 (1d10+3 -2 from HAM) 6.5 damage

Crit (5% = 0.6) 12 damage

Hit on 16-20 (21ac) = 1.9 average damage

Hit on 18-20 (23ac) = 1.25 average damage

So with shield of faith it would take 16 direwolves to take down Evie in four turns.

 

Werewolf (Pack Tactics) 15ac 71hp +2 dex

2 Attacks:

Bite +5 (2d8+3 -2 from HAM) 10.5 damage

Crit (5% = 0.95) 19 damage

Scratch +5 (2d6+3 -2 from HAM) 8.5 dmg

Crit (5% = 0.75) 15 damage

Longbow (150/600) +4 (2d8+2 -2 from HAM) 9.5 damage

Crit (5% = 0.9) 18 damage

Melee

Hit on 16-20 (21ac) = 5.5 average damage

Hit on 18-20 (23ac) = 3.6 average damage

Ranged 1.425

Hit on 17-20 (21ac) = 3.23 average damage

Hit on 19-20 (23ac) = 2.75 average damage

So with shield of faith it would take 7 (ranged) or 6 (melee) direwolves to take down Evie in four turns.

 

Party Damage

Evie: 1 atk: +6 to hit 15.5

v. Wolf 11.63 (1 kill)

v. Direwolf 10.08 (11.92hp left)

v. Werewolf 9.3 (61.7hp left)

 

Merry: 2 atks: +7 to hit 23 (1d4+5 1d6+5 +2d6 = 23)

v. Wolf 18.4 (1 kill, &3.6hp left)

v. Direwolf 16.1 (5.9hp left)

v. Werewolf 14.95 (56.05hp left)

 

Cat: 2 atks +8 to hit 29 (2(1d6+6 +2d4))

v. Wolf 24.65 (two wolves)

v. Direwolf 21.75 (0.25hp left)

v. Werewolf 20.3 (50.7hp left)

 

Val: (Dex 16) 2 targets 9 (1d8 each)

Avg damage 5.85

 

Per Round:

5 Wolves or 2 Direwolves or 50.4 our of 71hp for a Werewolf killed

 

4 rounds for 20 wolves

5 rounds for 10 Direwolves

7 rounds for 5 Werewolves

 

Round 1

20 to 15 Wolves left. Evie -9.28hp (68.22)

Save 1.32hp focussing on wolves

 

10 to 8 Direwolves left. Evie -11.25hp (66.25)

Save 1.25hp focussing on direwolves

 

5 (Bow) Werewolves. Evie -13.75hp (63.75)

Save 0hp focussing on werewolves

 

5 (Melee) Werewolves. Evie -18hp (59.5)

Save 0hp focussing on werewolves

 

Round 2

15 to 10 Wolves left. Evie -6.63hp (61.59)

Save 5.29hp focussing on wolves

 

8 to 6 Direwolves left. Evie -8.75hp (57.5)

Save 5hp focussing on direwolves

 

4 (Bow) Werewolves. Evie -11hp (52.75)

Save 2.75hp focussing on werewolves

 

4 (Melee) Werewolves. Evie -14.4hp (45.1)

Save 3.6hp focussing on werewolves

 

Round 3

10 to 5 Wolves left. Evie -3.98hp (57.61)

Save 11.91hp focussing on wolves

 

6 to 4 Direwolves left. Evie -6hp (51.5)

Save 11.5hp focussing on direwolves

 

4 to 3 (Bow) Werewolves left. Evie -9.63hp (43.12)

Save 6.87hp focussing on werewolves

 

4 to 3 (Melee) Werewolves left. Evie -12.6hp (32.5)

Save 9hp focussing on werewolves

 

Round 4

5 to 0 Wolves left. Evie -1.33hp (56.28)

Save 21.18hp focussing on wolves

 

4 to 2 Direwolves left. Evie -3.75hp (53.75)

Save 20.25hp focussing on direwolves

 

3 (Bow) Werewolves. Evie -8.25hp (34.87)

Save 12.37hp focussing on werewolves

 

3 (Melee) Werewolves. Evie -10.8hp (21.7)

Save 16.2hp focussing on werewolves

 

Which actually offers a pretty huge buffer of what the party can handle! Especially since I hadn’t really accounted for spell slots from the lv4 moon sorcerer Valderra, as accounting for that is really hard to math… What sort of mobs do you think I should throw their way? Little and often or one big horde or a mix bearing in mind wolves can smell from like a mile away

Wolves are territorial and typically have pretty large territories (>1 mile) and a rule of thumb is you need 100 prey to support 1 predator, so unless your woods are packed to the brim with prey animals a forest can't usually support a pack larger than 12 or so wolves. So a mob of 20+ wolves is going to feel incongruous to any of your players that know anything about real wolf ecology. Not to mention > 12 enemies can get really tedious to run in combat and if your players are >= 5th level the sorcerer can likely AoE blast any number of standard wolves to dust with. a single spell.

It’s Curse of Strahd so I don’t really mind slightly unrealistic pack densities because the whole realm attracts unusual quantities of wolves, bats and rats.

Strahd and Werewolves can control wolves outside their normal instincts etc.

It seems a large staple of the diet for the entirety of Barovia is hunting, so those woods must be teeming with life.

Finally, due to the mists hunting grounds can include areas outside the mists if higher powers will it to be so.

So I’m more concerned about satisfying combat that is fun

I’d run fewer combats. Just because, practically, it will get tedious fighting the same enemy again and again.

Aren't there name NPC werewolves with a bit more interesting stats than the RAW standard werewolf in Curse of Strad? Also aren't they a faction the party can consider allying with? (maybe that was HB by our DM). If so there's more to consider than just a combat.

With AC 21 and HAM a generic wolf is not going to be a serious threat to your party. Any monster where you need > 12 of them to challenge the party is pretty much a waste of time.

What do you mean by "statisfying" combat? Just dogpiling (pun intended!) on one player with a ton of enemies that all do exactly the same thing seems kind of boring. 

If you want consequences for the perfume, just MOAR wolves isn't necessarily that interesting. What should be a consequence of that perfume is that it's impossible for the party to short or long rest in the forest because wolves / werewolves keep constantly turning up to attack them.....

... thinking about it. The way I would run it is that as the party travels in the woods they see and hear more and more wolves following them around, and have those wolves be opportunistic : if the party rests and eats, the wolves attack to steal their food; if the party sleeps; the wolves attack them in the dark; any combat the party engages in suddenly has 1-2 dire wolves and 3-4 regular wolves join in from the rear and/or flank.

This gives the party something they can interact with, e.g. if they want to short rest maybe they can cast Create Food and Water, or throw most of their rations into the woods to keep the wolves busy while they rest, or they could us magic to create a shelter around themselves while they sleep or they could hunt a deer to give to the wolves, etc... etc...

Or maybe I'm not understanding? Are you worried about the design of the encounter at the wolf den? Isn't there special stats for a boss-wolf at the den?

The more suspense narrative that you are describing Agile is kind of what I had in mind for lots of fights. Draining party resources as the primary challenge.

The big fight with outrageous numbers that Xalthu was talking about is what I mean by having it all at once.

 I’m trying to work out which is more challenging… and which is a better story