So I have a possible encounter planned where my party faces off against 16 Orcs. They are levels 3-4, have some magic items, and 2 have feats. I wish to know if anyone has any tips about running this, like should I use a purely open space? Should I give the players some NPC allies? Is this a bad idea running an encounter with 16 orcs all at once? If anyone has any personal examples of something like this please share.
How many people are in your party? That's....a lot of actions the enemies will get to take between your parties turns. I don't have the patience to do the math for verification, but eyeballing it, the orcs will probably be able to bring a good amount of your party to 0hp in the first round, if not outright kill them with focused attacks. Orcs aren't dumb, and would work together to systematically take down tough foes.
You'd either have to break it up into manageable chunks (half at a time? idk), add a few NPC allies, or play the group of orcs like they're the biggest bumbling group of idiots since Mr. Bean.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Try running it as a simple stand-up brawl by yourself. That should give you a better idea how it'll go.
Don't roll all the orcs' initiatives as one group. While running all 16 separately is too much, four groups of four strikes me as a good balance between bookkeeping and preventing good initiative rolls turning into a TPK.
Consider running it in waves, where some significant portion of the orcs arrive something like 2 rounds later. Or on a large map, where they can't all get to the PCs at once.
Not directly related to the balance question: mix up your orcs. It's a lot more interesting to have to deal with, say, 12 orc melee and 4 orc archers, than it is to handle 16 identical orcs.
That is a really good idea. And to answer VanZoeren my party consists of five players, but I do believe that separating them into groups would be best thanks to you two. I will put in some ranged orcs, and run them in waves, so to say. Thanks you two, this will really help me out.
Orcs are low CR monsters for a L4 party of 4, but 16 of them may very well cause a TPK if facing them all without any help. Random things to consider giving them the party more chance of survival;
Wave of 4x4 orcs
Defensive position such as difficult terrain, cover etc
External help from trap, hazard, magic items, allies etc
3-way battle with a third-party
Inter-party conflict where orcs turn against each others.
Retreat early due to moral failure if reduced to less than 5 orcs or if certain figure dies
I did a little war game and 16 orcs crushed the 5 PCs in open terrain. It was a cake walk for the orcs to crush the PCs. The encounter builder in the 2014 DMG pp. 81-83 indicates the same thing, that 16 orcs would overrun a party of 5-lvl 4 PCs.
You'll need terrain and spells to balance this encounter.
Just wargame the thing as an orc rush and see what happens.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Yeah, I tried it out in the encounter builder, and if I threw all 16 orcs at them at once they would die. I do think that they could handle 4 orcs at a time, they have feats and homebrew magic items, and one of them is a healer. I just hope they can handle 4 orcs 4 times. Maybe I'll also put the players on a hill.
Yeah, I tried it out in the encounter builder, and if I threw all 16 orcs at them at once they would die. I do think that they could handle 4 orcs at a time, they have feats and homebrew magic items, and one of them is a healer. I just hope they can handle 4 orcs 4 times. Maybe I'll also put the players on a hill.
If things start going wrong, you can always decide the orcs in fight 2 or 3 have a couple healing potions. Or just cut one of the fights out. If there are 12 orcs instead of 16, the party will never know.
Yeah, I tried it out in the encounter builder, and if I threw all 16 orcs at them at once they would die. I do think that they could handle 4 orcs at a time, they have feats and homebrew magic items, and one of them is a healer. I just hope they can handle 4 orcs 4 times. Maybe I'll also put the players on a hill.
If things start going wrong, you can always decide the orcs in fight 2 or 3 have a couple healing potions. Or just cut one of the fights out. If there are 12 orcs instead of 16, the party will never know.
That is true. I could have the final batch of orcs wise up and leave, incorporating them later in the story. It all depends on how the dice rolls, however.
Whether 5 PCs can beat 16 orcs is heavily dependent on terrain and access to area effects; a single spike growth in a corridor will hold off an infinite number of orcs. Assuming that doesn't happen, you really only need to know three things
What is the expected dpr of an orc vs a PC. Assuming a typical AC of 17, an orc (attack +5) has a 45% chance to hit for 9.5 and a 5% chance to crit for an additional 6.5, for expected damage 4.6. 5 x level 5 PC probably have a combined hp total of 150, so on average it takes 32 orc attacks to take down the PCs.
How many orcs can engage for each round of the fight. This often goes down over the course of the fight.
How fast can the PCs kill the orcs?
As a simple rule of thumb, if we ignore reduced damage output (on both sides) due to casualties, if it takes longer for the PCs to take out the orcs than it takes for the orcs to take out the PCs, the orcs win. If the orcs can all attack, they need two rounds to take out all the PCs. Thus, the PCs need to be able to kill all the orcs in two rounds. This is typically not the case at level 4 (3-4 rounds is a more realistic estimate). However, if only half of the orcs can attack (or the PCs have better defenses than I describe), the PCs are likely to win. If only around four can attack, it's actually pretty easy for the PCs to win. The easy way to do this is to just split the orcs in two groups, where group 2 arrives 2-3 rounds after the start of the fight.
Try running it as a simple stand-up brawl by yourself. That should give you a better idea how it'll go.
Don't roll all the orcs' initiatives as one group. While running all 16 separately is too much, four groups of four strikes me as a good balance between bookkeeping and preventing good initiative rolls turning into a TPK.
Consider running it in waves, where some significant portion of the orcs arrive something like 2 rounds later. Or on a large map, where they can't all get to the PCs at once.
Not directly related to the balance question: mix up your orcs. It's a lot more interesting to have to deal with, say, 12 orc melee and 4 orc archers, than it is to handle 16 identical orcs.
This^
I would do it in waves. Let the party see or hear the other groups coming so they can decide on how to act. This also gives you the chance to back up if the encounter is too hard.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
So I have a possible encounter planned where my party faces off against 16 Orcs. They are levels 3-4, have some magic items, and 2 have feats. I wish to know if anyone has any tips about running this, like should I use a purely open space? Should I give the players some NPC allies? Is this a bad idea running an encounter with 16 orcs all at once? If anyone has any personal examples of something like this please share.
Would need to know the specific makeup of your party, their classes, which one is level 3 who is level 4. How much HP they have. Then you can determine whether or not 16 Orcs is too many. Even without that information, the answer is probably yes. So in round one 5 PCs at most can kill 5 orcs, but it is doubtful. Their best result is 5 orcs. Worse case all 16 orcs make an attack in round one. 3 Orcs to each PC. If we assume your party is mostly d8 characters and you have gone with average HP. That means each PC would have 18 hp with 2 of them having 23 hp. Now if All 16 Orcs hit, Your PCs are TPKed in round one.
Best case Scenerio 3 of the orcs die before they can attack leaving 13 orcs. IF all attacks hit, 3 of your party is dead with two of them having 5hp left. They will die.
Even if we factor in Probability, the PCs aren't likely to kill any orcs in round 1. So the PCs will still be TPKed.
The easiest way to figure out how many orcs you can have is to assume the PCs hit 50% of the time. (Roughly how likely the PCs are to hit) But Assume the Orcs always hit. With 5 PCs, 5 orcs are probably a good amount. You could add 1-2 more orcs and be somewhat safe. The more you can add really depends on the exact AC of the PCs.
I would like to thank you all for your Ernest solutions, but the battle is over. The party won, and honestly a bit easily. I had the last batch disperse and the players let them escape. Again, thank you, and your advice helped me.
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So I have a possible encounter planned where my party faces off against 16 Orcs. They are levels 3-4, have some magic items, and 2 have feats. I wish to know if anyone has any tips about running this, like should I use a purely open space? Should I give the players some NPC allies? Is this a bad idea running an encounter with 16 orcs all at once? If anyone has any personal examples of something like this please share.
How many people are in your party? That's....a lot of actions the enemies will get to take between your parties turns. I don't have the patience to do the math for verification, but eyeballing it, the orcs will probably be able to bring a good amount of your party to 0hp in the first round, if not outright kill them with focused attacks. Orcs aren't dumb, and would work together to systematically take down tough foes.
You'd either have to break it up into manageable chunks (half at a time? idk), add a few NPC allies, or play the group of orcs like they're the biggest bumbling group of idiots since Mr. Bean.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Try running it as a simple stand-up brawl by yourself. That should give you a better idea how it'll go.
Don't roll all the orcs' initiatives as one group. While running all 16 separately is too much, four groups of four strikes me as a good balance between bookkeeping and preventing good initiative rolls turning into a TPK.
Consider running it in waves, where some significant portion of the orcs arrive something like 2 rounds later. Or on a large map, where they can't all get to the PCs at once.
Not directly related to the balance question: mix up your orcs. It's a lot more interesting to have to deal with, say, 12 orc melee and 4 orc archers, than it is to handle 16 identical orcs.
That is a really good idea. And to answer VanZoeren my party consists of five players, but I do believe that separating them into groups would be best thanks to you two. I will put in some ranged orcs, and run them in waves, so to say. Thanks you two, this will really help me out.
Orcs are low CR monsters for a L4 party of 4, but 16 of them may very well cause a TPK if facing them all without any help. Random things to consider giving them the party more chance of survival;
Wave of 4x4 orcs
Defensive position such as difficult terrain, cover etc
External help from trap, hazard, magic items, allies etc
3-way battle with a third-party
Inter-party conflict where orcs turn against each others.
Retreat early due to moral failure if reduced to less than 5 orcs or if certain figure dies
Honestly I don't plan on having them retreat, but environment is a good idea, thanks.
I did a little war game and 16 orcs crushed the 5 PCs in open terrain. It was a cake walk for the orcs to crush the PCs. The encounter builder in the 2014 DMG pp. 81-83 indicates the same thing, that 16 orcs would overrun a party of 5-lvl 4 PCs.
You'll need terrain and spells to balance this encounter.
Just wargame the thing as an orc rush and see what happens.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Yeah, I tried it out in the encounter builder, and if I threw all 16 orcs at them at once they would die. I do think that they could handle 4 orcs at a time, they have feats and homebrew magic items, and one of them is a healer. I just hope they can handle 4 orcs 4 times. Maybe I'll also put the players on a hill.
If things start going wrong, you can always decide the orcs in fight 2 or 3 have a couple healing potions. Or just cut one of the fights out. If there are 12 orcs instead of 16, the party will never know.
That is true. I could have the final batch of orcs wise up and leave, incorporating them later in the story. It all depends on how the dice rolls, however.
Whether 5 PCs can beat 16 orcs is heavily dependent on terrain and access to area effects; a single spike growth in a corridor will hold off an infinite number of orcs. Assuming that doesn't happen, you really only need to know three things
As a simple rule of thumb, if we ignore reduced damage output (on both sides) due to casualties, if it takes longer for the PCs to take out the orcs than it takes for the orcs to take out the PCs, the orcs win. If the orcs can all attack, they need two rounds to take out all the PCs. Thus, the PCs need to be able to kill all the orcs in two rounds. This is typically not the case at level 4 (3-4 rounds is a more realistic estimate). However, if only half of the orcs can attack (or the PCs have better defenses than I describe), the PCs are likely to win. If only around four can attack, it's actually pretty easy for the PCs to win. The easy way to do this is to just split the orcs in two groups, where group 2 arrives 2-3 rounds after the start of the fight.
This^
I would do it in waves. Let the party see or hear the other groups coming so they can decide on how to act. This also gives you the chance to back up if the encounter is too hard.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Would need to know the specific makeup of your party, their classes, which one is level 3 who is level 4. How much HP they have. Then you can determine whether or not 16 Orcs is too many. Even without that information, the answer is probably yes. So in round one 5 PCs at most can kill 5 orcs, but it is doubtful. Their best result is 5 orcs. Worse case all 16 orcs make an attack in round one. 3 Orcs to each PC. If we assume your party is mostly d8 characters and you have gone with average HP. That means each PC would have 18 hp with 2 of them having 23 hp. Now if All 16 Orcs hit, Your PCs are TPKed in round one.
Best case Scenerio 3 of the orcs die before they can attack leaving 13 orcs. IF all attacks hit, 3 of your party is dead with two of them having 5hp left. They will die.
Even if we factor in Probability, the PCs aren't likely to kill any orcs in round 1. So the PCs will still be TPKed.
The easiest way to figure out how many orcs you can have is to assume the PCs hit 50% of the time. (Roughly how likely the PCs are to hit) But Assume the Orcs always hit. With 5 PCs, 5 orcs are probably a good amount. You could add 1-2 more orcs and be somewhat safe. The more you can add really depends on the exact AC of the PCs.
I would like to thank you all for your Ernest solutions, but the battle is over. The party won, and honestly a bit easily. I had the last batch disperse and the players let them escape. Again, thank you, and your advice helped me.