Ok the general point is if 16 level 10 PC's go up against a party of 4 level (insert number here most likely 16) BBEG's. Is there a reasonable chance that they will win (most likely with heavy losses)?
I really would like some opinions here because even with various pre-made encounter generators this is APL and that seems a little off.
Thanks in advance.
Just want to clarify. 16 level 10 PCs? You have 16 players in your game? Or four players playing four characters each?
Also, do you mean four 16th level BBEGs or four CR 16 BBEGs? There's a difference.
I could see 16 L10 PCs downing 4 L20 NPCs in 3 rounds max, simply due to action economy.
I once ran a big game (10+ players) back in 3.5. For the game end they went up against 4 BBEG and for the most part Mapleswitch is right, the action economy alone meant that what should have been a pretty tough fight was over very quickly. This will hold true really no matter what the levels involved are. In my example it was epic level PCs vs APL+3/4
yes there are 16 players.
the plot is that they are all trapped in a large castle in groups of four with this as a final battle against the four that trapped them there.( powerful pc's run by the 4 gm's of the group).
All in all an easy battle or well you get the point.
Also just to say before being asked the optimization level will range from wizards with power atack to some realy optimized person and everywhere in between.
(yes I'm in a hand-basket)
so assuming 16 PCs each level 10
and 4 BBEG's each level 16 (if normal race, CR 15), then:
lets temporarily split up the party into four parties of four
so:
Party A:4 level 10 PCs vs 1 level 16 BBEG
Party B:4 level 10 PCs vs 1 level 16 BBEG
Party C:4 level 10 PCs vs 1 level 16 BBEG
Party D:4 level 10 PCs vs 1 level 16 BBEG
then individually, it would be a really tough fight (edited: redundant repetition that looked really weird)
when put together though, 16 players could focus all their fire power on one bad guy, then then next, etc, which has a chance of working, but it is almost guaranteed that a large amount of the party will die in the process, if not all of the party
It is heavily in favor of the PCs due to action economy. If you run 1 versus 4 its worse for the BBEG than 16 vs 4 is. Some players may die, but the BBEGs will all die.