Setup: My 11th level players go to a town to discover a Vrykolakas Ancient has subjugated the people. Werewolves, Vrykolakas Spawn, and other low-level creatures maraud the countryside.
Sounds cool.
I want to set up a dungeon crawl where my players have to fight their way into the Ancient's lair to face Spawn (probably too low level to be a threat to 11th level characters), Vrykolakas Masters, and other horrors
The level range of interesting encounters is not very wide. Below CR-3 it is tedious rather than interesting, and above CR+3 it is a TPK threat that usually involves players retreating or characters dying (or both).
If you want to have the feel of stomping through hordes of low level enemies that together are together still an interesting fight, probably best to use Troop or Swarm creature enemies rather than individuals.
I assume I run the dungeon in exploration mode.
Confused here - meaning running even the combat in exploration mode?
I do this often in my homebrew game. Level -3 or even level -4 monsters are an absolute blast for those long crawling combat encounters and they only get tedious if all the monsters have the same objective of trying to swarm the heroes as quickly as possible. If they have more powerful allies they can go and help prepare to come into the combat 4 or 5 rounds later, or hazards they can get rolling, vehicles to start to crew, or hostages to harass, then figuring out how to herd them and stop them becomes a fun activity that can turn a 12 or 15 round encounter into one the players will be on the edge of their seats trying to think of which of their dwindling resources to use most effectively.
Yes, if the lower level enemies are fighting indirectly that can also be quite interesting.
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I do this often in my homebrew game. Level -3 or even level -4 monsters are an absolute blast for those long crawling combat encounters and they only get tedious if all the monsters have the same objective of trying to swarm the heroes as quickly as possible. If they have more powerful allies they can go and help prepare to come into the combat 4 or 5 rounds later, or hazards they can get rolling, vehicles to start to crew, or hostages to harass, then figuring out how to herd them and stop them becomes a fun activity that can turn a 12 or 15 round encounter into one the players will be on the edge of their seats trying to think of which of their dwindling resources to use most effectively.
The assault against the dragon in the labyrinthine mine with his minions and their forced-miner hostages that we had to rescue really was quite a memorable encounter! :D