So I'm looking to design an encounter where the players must survive multiple waves of low level creatures with less than 10 minutes between waves. I'm thinking 4-6 waves of creatures at approx party level -2. I cant just sum the creature xp and use standard encounter budgets.
Has anyone run/designed an encounter like this? Are there any published adventures featuring anything like this?
I've done it before. What level and what classes are in your party? A high level well played caster really shines in these encounters. Enemies will more reliably fail saves, so the right spell can cripple a whole wave or put a major delay in the next wave joining.
Yeah, party composition matters a lot, as well as whether the players have accounted for such events. Does the Animal Barbarian even have a decent secondary melee weapon for when their Rage ends? If it's never ended in battle before, it may not have even occurred to them. Has the party relied on lulls for healing and invested little on in-combat healing or items for emergencies? Does the Wild Shape Druid (et al) keep a spare Focus Point or two handy or burn through them with the expectation of rest?
Which segues into another facet to consider: player expectation. I warn my players about such things, namely that there might not be lulls between combats, verisimilitude takes precedence over PC convenience. Of course this leads to a greater payoff for players who scout, set up defenses, stealth-kill an encounter or two before alarms are raised, hit & run, or even better hit & run & ambush. Is any of that even on their radar or is each combat seen as its own mini-game? PF2 has many feats to accelerate lulls, i.e. Quick Repair, so players could take such steps to aid when there's time pressure, but only if they understand there might be time pressure. Heck, I think a Viking players might get excited when they improvise several makeshift shields. And those casting Heroism might appreciate using their relatively long buff for more than one battle for a change.
And then monster composition matters too. Creatures might have different impacts depending on where they're placed. Likely the end creatures will face a depleted party so it seems natural those monsters will impact more. Except a creature with poison (especially w/ a longer duration), or which inflicts another adverse Condition that carries into multiple battles, might have more impact in the beginning than at the end. If fighting on the same turf, it might be interesting if several monsters had those kinds of effects that alter the landscape, keeping the aftereffects of the battle around through several more. Even a few Large or Huge corpses might do that. :)
Which is all to say that there's no simple formula for determining the XP budget! The default would be to allow more encounters/XP because of facing enemies separately, but with coordination one could make separate waves even more dangerous than if the enemies all came in a single wave. Example, minions in one wave can often be taken out with one or two AoEs, no matter their numbers if clumped. But several waves in, the party might have burnt its best AoEs and actually have to engage them.
Or bust out that spare wall-spell scroll.
That reminds me of a Gygax module where most of the tougher creatures in the campaign's climax were placed where they couldn't contribute much (and this by command from the NPC leaders)! That seemed like horrible tactics until the combat started playing out and the PCs rained devastation on the evil temple's hordes...none of it hitting these high-value targets who were in a great position to act as reserves once the dust settled. If all the baddies had been in the same wave or if the tougher creatures had been front-loaded, it would have been an easier fight.
My players routinely face a continuous stream of opponents. I am adapting the Ironfang Invasion adventure path to PF2 rules. That adventure path is about the hobgoblin Ironfang Legion trying to conquer a corner of the nation Nirmathas. Since I have to convert the creatures in the modules, I frequently use lots of troop units instead of converting unique high-level creatures. The troops were a 5th-level large Hobgoblin Troop (represents 4 Hobgoblin Soldiers) when the party was 5th-to-8th level, and a 9th-level gargantuan Hobgoblin Formation (represents 16 Hobgoblin Soldiers) when the party was 9th level to their current 12th level.
Ten Hobgoblin Troops marching in a column or a dozen Hobgoblin Troops guarding the perimeter of a fort or eight Hobgoblin Formations trying to rush through a broken city gate cannot all encounter the party at once. They flow toward the party in a stream.
The key is that the party has to defeat the stream as fast as they arrive, without becoming significantly injured themselves. For most parties, avoiding significant injury requires a Moderate-Threat (80xp) encounter or easier, though my highly tactical players with experience fighting armies can defend well against a Severe-Threat (120xp) encounter. A party that relies on taking hits during combat and healing during a 10-minute break might have to face Low-Threat (60xp) encounters instead. Have the stream advance slowly enough that the PCs defeat the original threat before the next threat joins them.
In theory, the party could face an endless stream of low-damage encounters. In practice, the characters run out of slotted spells, once-a-day abilities, and consumables, shields need repairs after shield blocking, and the little bit of damage each wave adds up. The ten-troop column was 330xp against a 7-member party, so scaled by 4/7 it was a Beyond-Extreme 188xp encounter. I threw even more at them at the city gate, but they also had the city's archers helping them, so judging the true challenge was difficult (the module switched away from regular xp to a Victory system for awarding xp based on how well the city fared. The city needed some wall and gate repairs with no deaths, so the PCs earned a Great Victory worth 1,000xp). I had 24 Hobgoblin Formations (30xp each) attacking the city along with a handful of 10th-level and 13th-level characters.
My guess is that a party could handle four Moderate-threat (80xp) waves without time for Treat Wounds in between waves but with time to fully defeat each wave before the next arrives. That would be 320xp total.
I've run a few like this in homebrew.
1. You'll need to decide up front if you want to telegraph the format. If you don't, you'll need to consider the real possibility of PCs not pacing themselves.
2. I would advocate a 10 minute break at some point. Squeezing in one Refocus or Treat Wounds can make a big difference and gives players at least a sense of control.
3. At some point, encounter scaling gets skewed. The 3rd fight may be Moderate on paper but could be Severe. Be prepared to rescale on the fly if it either becomes so easy it's not fun or so hard it's not fun. With multiple low level enemies, scaling is pretty easy, just make a note of how many you'd take away or add.
I've GMed a 3-wave fight with 2 rounds between waves. The waves were all Moderate encounters of the PCs' level. In my opinion, you should ramp up the challenge as you're making it far too simple to be interesting.
You can chain Moderate encounters every 2 rounds and Severe ones every 3 rounds (even if I'd avoid Severe encounters in such a format as they can really spiral out of control).
I'll still give a bit of time to breath to my players or start to go down to low difficulty encounters after the third one as 3 encounters in a row really take their toll on resources (unless it's the only fight of the day then players can go crazy on spell slots).
(unless it's the only fight of the day then players can go crazy on spell slots)
On a bigger scale, it's just about the long-term pacing of the campaign. On one end, some GMs pretty much allow PCs to go into every fight with full HP, full Focus, and maybe even full spells. On the other end, some GMs will push characters to their breaking points every day. And there's a whole spectrum in between.
And it's fine to to try to push or pull that needle a little bit - take a group that's used to going in with full everything, and put one constraint. But it's not cool to jerk the needle around wildly, like take a group used to 1 combat/day and suddenly give them 5 in an hour.
Players and GMs usually reach an equilibrium, with players adjusting their characters to fit the GM's style (and the rest of their party), and the GMs modifying the campaign to fit the players. [For a very specific point, this comes up all the times in alchemist threads when people complain that an alchemist's limited reagents can't keep up with a champion's 16-hour adventuring day, which is totally accurate - and I personally experienced the pain in the Season 2 7-10 scenarios, wow, I had not run out of reagents since Levels 1-2.]
Disturbing the equilibrium should be done slowly and incrementally - because players can't adjust their characters that fast. If they built their characters around always going in with a Focus spell buff, it may take them a few levels to get an alternative even after it's made clear the GM wants to discourage that.
I would take a page from video games and have the waves ramp up by having different/stronger enemies - fighting 4 waves of just goblin warriors is kind of dull and repetitive. You want them to bring in bigger creatures (like a couple of mounted goblin commandos for wave 3 and a troll for wave 4, for example)
For the first time running this, maybe make it so that you have something big and threatening in later rounds, but make it slow. Give the party an opportunity to back off and retreat, and then they can try again after they recoup.
Of course, the enemies would flush out their waves again after gathering their forces. But this would allow the party to get an expectation of how to budget renewable resources like focus.
Oh, and yes- some of the enemies would pursue when you leave, but they would be weaker scouts designed to harry you. Retreat should be an easier option, but not free. And if the players try to abuse the escape system, then allow the enemies to take the time to gear up their cavalry and send strong, fast enemies.
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(unless it's the only fight of the day then players can go crazy on spell slots)On a bigger scale, it's just about the long-term pacing of the campaign. On one end, some GMs pretty much allow PCs to go into every fight with full HP, full Focus, and maybe even full spells. On the other end, some GMs will push characters to their breaking points every day. And there's a whole spectrum in between.
And it's fine to to try to push or pull that needle a little bit - take a group that's used to going in with full everything, and put one constraint. But it's not cool to jerk the needle around wildly, like take a group used to 1 combat/day and suddenly give them 5 in an hour.
Players and GMs usually reach an equilibrium, with players adjusting their characters to fit the GM's style (and the rest of their party), and the GMs modifying the campaign to fit the players. [For a very specific point, this comes up all the times in alchemist threads when people complain that an alchemist's limited reagents can't keep up with a champion's 16-hour adventuring day, which is totally accurate - and I personally experienced the pain in the Season 2 7-10 scenarios, wow, I had not run out of reagents since Levels 1-2.]
Disturbing the equilibrium should be done slowly and incrementally - because players can't adjust their characters that fast. If they built their characters around always going in with a Focus spell buff, it may take them a few levels to get an alternative even after it's made clear the GM wants to discourage that.
Well, it's a complex question, the GM-player relationship.
I've stressed the system to its maximum: one Moderate every 2 rounds. It's hot, but it works (but I wouldn't have gone as far as 6 waves).
I don't think you should go above that, but you can get as high as that.
OP was speaking of "level-2" encounters, which are trivial encounters. It won't be interesting as these encounters can be dispatched in a single round. If the OP's campaign is not very tough, I'd at least put low encounters, or maybe a mix of low and moderate encounters, with the GM choosing what level of difficulty depending on the current state of the party (I think it's the best thing to do with a wave battle, you have complete control on the difficulty so choose the appropriate one).
I'd avoid ending with the strongest encounters. Even if it looks funny on paper, it means that the first encounters have to be very easy as you can't start a tough encounter with remnants of previous encounters and a lack of resources as your players have used most of them. But starting with easy encounters you'll dispatch them quickly and won't have the feeling to chain encounters. I'd personally keep the same difficulty between encounters, varying enemies only. And the difficulty will slightly ramp up because of players resources getting low and remnants of previous encounters.
As a side note, I like to put my players in difficult situations where they can't necessarily use their prefered strategy. So, yes, they may start with a lack of focus point or low hit points. It pushes them to have backup strategies instead of using the same tools over and over again. But that's a GM choice.
And I like PF2 for that, as you get what you want very easily. By stressing the system, I've seen that I was designing very tough fights without getting in the punishing territory (outside Brimoraks which are out of line in my opinion). Something that was impossible with PF1 considering the high level of variations during fights.
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An interesting aspect of this is whether the players can tell ahead of a particular fight if it's going to be a standalone or part of a chain.
If you're traveling overland and run into a monster in the woods, that's likely going to be a standalone. On the other hand, if you're raiding a gang hideout, you know that the gang members in a particular room are unlikely to be a standalone, as people hear the noise and start joining in (or fleeing, and you have to get to them before they can abscond with evidence or loot).
Published dungeons are in a weird in-between design space, where looking at the map, encounters are often so close that they will tend to chain up. But the difficulty of the encounters tends to be too high for that, so in practice these encounters will be more standalone than is strictly plausible, or maybe the GM will nerf them a bit, or have to boost the party, or it turns into one of those forum stories where people complain that PF2 is too hard, or, ... The point is: this also tends to send off confusing signals to the players on what to expect. You can't reason about a situation that's not really reasonable.
I think the importance of the players having some clue about the situation is important, because it enables them to make tactical choices, like do we hold back area spells until more targets get into the blast zone, or do we use a big buff, or bother to set up a spell like Bless that gets notably better if a combat lasts for more than a few rounds? Or do we play cautious and damage-avoiding, or do we accept more damage because we have to rush through to prevent an enemy at the back of the dungeon from escaping or burning the ledgers?
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An interesting variant of this is wave fights that are about running out the clock. Like "survive in this arena for a minute" or "hold this hill until dawn and the undead retreat". It can turn into one of those halfway through, when the PCs can hear reinforcements coming but have to survive one more wave before relief arrives. This makes it interesting because the focus shifts from killing enemies, to protecting yourself, perhaps even staging a gradual retreat and throwing up obstacles to slow down pursuit.
Something I still wanna do is combine this with the Library rules. The library research rules as you might remember, are at their best when it's interesting how fast you can make new discoveries. If you had infinite time, then you could just roll until you succeed. But combined with waves, you could have the research providing new insights into why the waves are coming or giving new options on how to fight them.