Hi everyone.
I have a question regarding how to run combat with a massive amount of enemies. Today my players decided to help out a region of frontier country, by challenging a giant pack of Winter Wolves.
I am unsure if they'll go though with it, but presently they stand to fight around 40 CR5 Winter Wolves and their Alpha Usxhvalha, an Advanced Winter Wolf CR 8, totalling quite the epic challenge for their APL 13 party.
Now I can only imagine my players will be inventive and find some way to tip the situation in their favor, but let us assume for the moment that everything fails and the enemy just opens the floodgates and pour on them like a wave.
How would you run such an encounter? I'm concerned that the encounter will feel slow to my players, with around 8 wolves taking turn in between each of theirs.
-Nearyn
You should adapt this. Well, go to that page and look for the Troop subtype. The linkage must've gotten messed up.
Or make the wolves have 1 HP. Your players are the Big Damn Heroes, let them kill some uppity puppies fast.
ok well... aside from the fact that if the players KNOW they are going up against something like this, it should be a ninja raid/special forces attack and not taking a nasty fart at the den entrance and shouting come git some!
Let's assume like you said, at some point maybe all 41 combatants have the ability to engage a group of 4-6 enemies at once.
1) consider terrain... how do they all GET to the enemy (players)?
if there is a mouth to a cave of their den, they all can't get out of it at once, they all can't attack at once. There is a very good chance that many combatants can't reach the PCs because their allies will be taking up spaces, and/or terrain limits the number of spaces.
2) Consider mannerisms/chain of command.
A Lead dog like that doesn't keep in tip top shape by engaging in every battle he's in... he and a few lieutenants will hang back and possibly a small group of body guards and females.
This means the main assault body of the pack may be limited to 22 out of the core 41 members.
Of that, a smart leader will not throw his whole hosts at every danger... so the first scout may only be 5-7 winter wolves, if they are dispatched easily, he may send a LT, with 15 winter wolves as a vanguard.
If half their number are dead, and the party is still advancing, delay tactics might be deployed (another LT and 6 more wolves) while the rest of the pack tries to make an escape...
Live to fight another day.
3) mass battle, the party surprises them all in the den and there is enough room to do battle (fire ball anyone?)
I did this once with my party that fought a gaggle of lizard men. (and yea the witch tooled them with two lightening bolts)
I take a piece of paper and write them in groups as to what their HP's are.
Lets say there are 30 "normal" winter wolves.
I'll write lowest Hp first:
22, 22, 23, 24, 27
(leave space)
29, 31, 33, 35, 35, 35, 36, 38
and so on... so I can keep track of conditions and damage.
I also roll attacks en masse, so if I have the first line of 'arrow catchers' (the weakest ones)
and there are 5 of them, I decide "two of them attack you " (throw to 20's) and "three of them attack you" (throw three 20s)
The PC's are then told how many enemies actually landed a hit, and if any of them were criticals.
I repeat until all enemies have had a chance to make an attack, of those that can't I describe their movements or behavior.
Then I roll damage. "Fighter, how many hit you?" none. "Cleric how many hit you?" Two? I roll damage.
Rogue how many hit you? 2, 1 critical... Roll damage, draw crit card,
When I get done... I verbally make a summary of the combat actions, "Ok four wolves surrounded the fighter, but none of them were able to get through his heavy armor"
The cleric got nipped on the leg by one of the wolves attacking him and one tripped him and he's now on the ground.
the rogue was viscously savaged by the two that are attacking him and bleeding badly....
what do you do?
Rinse and repeat until all of once side is dead or retreating.
Usually do all attacks first, en masse, sometimes I've thrown seven 20s at the same time (borrowing from players frequently) I just put em in my hand and let them fly... it;s not really important WHICH one hit, since they are all statistically the same, except for how many hp they have left.... only need to decide how MANY did any damage.
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I came up with these ideas a while back, may be of use.
1. "Staggering." depending on how many opponents there are, you could "stagger" a die roll, so a 13 could come off as, say 11, 13, 15, 17.
2. "Flavor duty." Assign a PC each round to come up with a flavorful way to get rid of a crowd of wolves.
3. "The Weakspot". Once your CR8 buddy is gone, some of the wolves may retreat.
4. Sacrifice minions.
5. Avoid waves-Seeing them all at once will cause the PCs to use the are much more to their advantage. And they should be able to.
6. Great Cleave and be damned-Declare a house rul that anything below a certain CR can be cleaved.
7. Allow them a clear and obvious means of escape. Prepare to potentially DxM another one.
I've run many a battle with vast numbers of foes, and it does slow things down.
One way I've adapted is to break the enemy force up into smaller groups and send them in a few at a time. This does reduce the danger in terms of lowering the possibility of a straight-up TPK, but it can be used to great effect to make the battle seem more memorable and also grant variety so as not to bog the game down in unnecessary battle-slog.
For instance, let's say one group of wolves comes straight in. Just a few rounds after that, another is found to have circled around to attack from the trees behind. Maybe another is lying in wait, ready to ambush the party when they charge the field, etc. Each "sub-encounter" becomes a memorable fight on its own.
The party itself may create some variety in a similar way, by choosing terrain carefully, or building some kind of quick structure to block advance. I like to attack strongholds the PCs have taken residence in, for this same reason: waves of enemies coming in through various entrances or using a variety of different attack forms makes for a much less monotonous large-scale battle.
It goes without saying that the system is not built for mass combat. It also goes without saying that the heroes turning the tide of great battle sounds very exciting. I have tried it, and more than once, and have regretted it every time when using the rules as written. You are correct that it will be long and uninteresting for your players. It does not end up memorable or cool the way you think it will be. I would suggest to either avoid it altogether, or to run the mass combat in the background without die rolls. Either put some of the creatures out and ignore the rest (they're doing other stuff), or set them all out and only control some of them, while the rest mill about without attacking.
The pack should not fight to the death, down to the last wolf. Once the alphas have been killed or routed, the rest should flee. Alternately, a beta could simply retreat once injured. There is nothing heroic in being an exterminator.
Break them up into "squads" of 5 each (so 9 squads with the big one being the 10th squad alone).
Stagger the die-rolls, a squad rolls a single d20 for its attacks, the roll is 1d20 and is applied as such:
1d20:
1)1d20-10
2)1d20-5
3)1d20+0
4)1d20+5
5)1d20+10
everything that is over a 20 on the dice-roll is a crit, now crit threat. Everything that is under 1 on the dice-roll is a miss.
If you have tokens that have numbers differentiate the monsters by monster type on the tokens
Also, you might want to stagger the initiative rolls so you only have to roll 1d20 instead of 10.
Initiative: 1d20-10+5
Squad 1: Goblins
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20-8+5
Squad 2: Kobolds
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20-6+5
Squad 3: Zombies
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20-4+5
Squad 4: Skeletons
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20-2+5
Squad 5: Humans
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20+2+5
Squad 6: Elves
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20+4+5
Squad 7: Dwarves
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20+6+5
Squad 8: Spiders
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20+8+5
Squad 9: Orcs
1 HP: 57/
2 HP: 57/
3 HP: 57/
4 HP: 57/
5 HP: 57/
Initiative: 1d20+10+Initiative
Squad 10(Usxhvalha): Wolves
1 HP: x/
Start combat at the max range of the offensive casters, so probably around 800+feet, and have the winter wolves have to full round run at the players.
Because the enemies have the number advantage, as well as the speed advantage I fully expect the scenario to go like this:
Either the offensive casters kill a lot of them before they close in melee or the wolves surround the party and then just massacre them with this:
Special Attacks breath weapon (every 1d4 rounds, 15-ft. cone, 6d6 cold damage, Reflex half DC 17)
I also expect the wolves to grapple and pull people off to be devoured.
Remember: If it was easy to take on an entire platoon of Winter Wolves then someone would have done it already. The players will either die screaming and be turned into fertilizer, or they will succeed. Their tactics and what they do can easily decide the outcome of this fight.
The winter wolves can bridge the distance of the people casting fireball in 4 rounds if combat starts at 800 feet, the average damage of a level 13 fireball (10d6) is 35 damage, Winter Wolves are vulnerable to fire, turning the damage into 52 fire damage, which brings them down to 5hp. I have a feeling that the winter wolf would just run away at that much damage.
Long story short: If the Winter Wolves make it to the PCs then the PC are going to be delicious. Don't tell them this, naturally, but this fight can will be decided in the first 4 rounds.
Why do I say this?
41 winter wolves all using their breath attacks will do far more damage than can be healed by the party cleric. It IS a losing battle, and considering they will all mostly be going for grapples against the armored guys, or just bites VS the non-armored looking guys this battle is over 24 seconds after it starts.
If the wolves ambush the heroes then they win. If the heroes ambush the wolves then the wolves might still win. If the heroes die then they will probably realize that maybe fighting a platoon of enemies at once is not a good idea.
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Break it up into relevant and discrete sections instead of a single drawn out slaughterfest. I've written something about it here.
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I ran a homebrew thing in Taldor about a month ago along this line. The PCs, and their 6 allies, had to defend this small fort from about 45 attackers.
I attacked the fort from 3 sides, with the attack groups pushing these wheeled walls as cover. It was initially a few rounds of long range archery, where I ruled if you hit something, it went down. Once they were about 80 feet away, we went to normal rules. This killed off maybe 4-5 attackers.
Next phase was the attackers putting up ladders (2-3) on the left and right walls, then attempting to scale. The third attack group went for the gate, with a battering ram.
This took a long time, with archery, boiling oil, and bloody hand to hand. Eventually the attackers got into the courtyard and got the front gate opened, but by then they were down to maybe 8 left. It seemed that the sides/ladder attackers suffered the heaviest casualties and the front had severe issues with boiling oil and archery.
I simply split the entire force into 3 groups, each on a card, with a group initiative and everyones hp tracked on it. It took hours to do, but it was beyond epic.
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I've done large combats in both 3.5 and 4e though not pathfinder but I think the lessons would translate we'll:
First, it can be fun.
Second, it will be challenging.
You will need to keep everything moving quickly and with lots of monsters you don't have time to dither & will need to use all the dm tricks you have to keep it interesting and moving.
1. Don't have everything go at once. "ten winter wolves breathe: make ten reflex saves-oh, half damage knocks you out after 7? I guess the last there kill you" is not fun. Stagger them into as many groups as you can handle, mark the based of the miniatures with colored stickers so you can tell your groups apart and number them to help keep track of damage. I would advise staggering the initiatives rather than rolling-if you have 10 groups of bad guys, assign them initiative rolls of 1, 20, 3, 18, 5,16,7,14,9,& 12.
2. Roll as few dice as you can. Damage rolls are fiddly and easily dispensed with for everyone except the boss. Just use the average. If the bite is 1d8+6, just call it ten damage every time.
3. Still move the monsters one at a time, even when a group are going on the same initiative. It can be important for things like combat reflexes and flanking bonuses (usually the first badguy won't get a flank unless he readies).
4. Speaking of flanking and readying actions, those can be good ways to set apart different types of foes. Non-stop animals like bears might not bother to flank while wolves might flank extensively. Disciplined hobgoblin soldiers might move to where another hobgoblin will be able to flank with them & ready an attack for when they have a flank. Stow might do that too, but they will find the ready going to waste when their wounded ally says "thanks for slowing down the pursuit" and runs away rather than taking the flanking spot.
5. Be really careful about using masses of foes with auto-damage powers. 12 derro with sound burst deal 12d8 guaranteed damage and that's dangerous even at level 12 when they no longer normally are a threat. 40+ winter wolves will be very deadly for similar reasons unless the party has mass protection from cold (or everyone has evasion).
Thanks everyone, for your quick responses and great input.
I'll provide some contextual information, that may help shed some light on my players' exact situation.
The party consists of:
A very strong, high AC paladin.
A resilient, high AC monk.
A ranged-specialist rogue, with low hp and AC.
A bard, specialized in party-support and buffing.
A Hedge-Witch specialized in healing. She memorizes largely non-healing, since she can spontaneously convert spells to Cure-<X>-wounds spells.
They're presently travelling close to the boarder between Varisia and The Linnorm Kingdoms, heading very close to the western edges of the Kodar mountains.
They travel by day, and use the spell Secure Shelter by night, having learned from a local druid that travelling without sunlight in these regions is suicide. Further they were told that if they intended to head towards a lake near the Kodars, they should cross a river they're travelling next to, since they were about to head into Usxhvalha's territory, and among the wolves of these frozen badlands, he was the largest, and most dangerous the druid had ever known live in the area, and commanded a host of wolves, greater than one would believe.
My players decided to try to help the region by not crossing the river, and instead heading into wolf-territory to kill themselves some winter-wolves. Last night, their cottage was surrounded by a large scouting group of 20 or so Wolves, hoping to just grab a few morsels and drag them off. When they saw the shelter, that they knew weren't there the day before, they decided to just circle it and taunt the PCs for awhile, before pulling back to tell their Alpha about it. The PCs know there is likely to be around 40 wolves if not more, yet they plan to go through with it.
I believe the paladin plans to challenge Usxhvalha to single combat, hopefully scaring the others off. I've yet to make my mind up if I'll have Usxhvalha take up the challenge, but so far I'm thinking not.
Also note that I do not imagine the wolves sleeping in a cave, since they have no need to hide from the elements of the region.
The players have been provided with an escape-route, in that they can cross the river to escape. I've made it clear to them that because of fluff-reasons, the wolves will not step foot(step paw?) in the river. However due to it being around midway through Pharast, some of the snow in the lower mountains, at the base of the river has started melting, and the river currents are strong and foam decorates the water. Also, my players have access to teleport, which could be a last-second save for them, provided they're capable of remaining in touching-distance of eachother.
In light of these informations, is there anything you would like to add? :)
-Nearyn
The party consists of:
A very strong, high AC paladin.
A resilient, high AC monk.
A ranged-specialist rogue, with low hp and AC.
A bard, specialized in party-support and buffing.
A Hedge-Witch specialized in healing. She memorizes largely non-healing, since she can spontaneously convert spells to Cure-<X>-wounds spells.
So they have no blaster . . . vs 41 enemies . . . .
Yup, they are going to be delicious.Also, the Paladin can challenge Usxhvalha in single combat all he wants. Winter Wolves are NE, they are not interested in "keeping their word" to the point of it being foolish. I would expect the Winter Wolves to use this as an excuse to move around the party, and then to attack them as soon as combat starts with the paladin.
Why would she risk herself when she has 40+ wolves to throw at the party. If she thinks they are a threat then she will attack them at their weakest hour, and from what I understand about the party composition the wolves quite literally have nothing to fear from your party in their numbers.
If they grapple at all the party is screwed--and yes, you should have the lower CR winter wolves attempt to grapple everyone so they cannot act.
The scenario is this: The PCs cannot outrun the winter-wolves on foot, and thus they must escape via magic, or defeat the wolves. Considering their chances are abysmal against a large number of winter wolves the PCs are either going to be slaves or delicious.
Though, this might be a way to force the PCs to do something for Usxhvalha after their humiliating defeat. Maybe they have to help these winter-wolves kill a rival pack.
Usxhvalha could keep them alive for a little while, forcing them to strip--effectively losing everything but the bare necessities to stay alive--and the scenario changes from "defeat the Winter Wolves" to "Escape before they get hungry".
Perhaps people who have been particularly pious to their patron deity will be saved by an outsider, but this is very Deus ex Machina.
Maybe the Winter Wolves just wanted to stomp on the PCs, tear them up while leaving them alive, just to stomp on their balls--perhaps quite literally--before kicking them out to run away like the vermin they are--though I think at least tearing one of them apart and turning them into fertilizer is in order here!--
Naturally I have faith in my players, that they will find a way to handle the situation :)
Though I'll admit that these are grim odds indeed, and quite a few CR above their APL, but at least they went into it, of their own chosing.
I've got a question regarding the Troop subtype. It says that damage is based on hit dice. Does that mean that a 6 hit die winter wolf troop will deal 6 damage automatically? Or does it mean it will do 6+7(str + prime nattack)+1d6 cold damage?
Also, would a troop be immune to chain lightning?
And how would the free trip attempt on every landed hit work with a troop? Do I just roll a CMB roll against each enemy hit, every round?
-Nearyn
Naturally I have faith in my players, that they will find a way to handle the situation :)
The winter wolves want you to pass the BBQ sauce, this Hero meat is DELICIOUS!
40xCR5, this becomes
16 monster = +8CR.
8 monsters = +6CR.
So your PCs are up against
2xCR13 encounters, and 1xCR11 encounter, with a CR8 mixed in there.
This becomes a
CR 15.5 encounter.
Instead have 48 winter wolves to make it CR16
or
32 winter wolves to have it be CR15
The addition of one CR 8 monster in the mix is of no consequence to the CR between 15 and 16.
It isn't the wolves themselves that are going to kill your party, it is the action economy that will. Your PCs literally will have nowhere to run.
Possible saves: there is a group of people who part of the wolves to to kill because they mistaken these poor fools for your players. They are delicious while the other half of the wolves are busy trying to fit your players into human-sized hot-dog buns.