Funnel Advice | How many monsters in an encounter

[Lauguz]

Hello DCC Nation!

I've found a lot of excellent advice regarding how many and what types of encounters to have in the funnel, but I'm hoping you vets can share some recommendations about specific encounter design. Specifically: how many low level foss (ex. Beastmen) should I include in an encounter?

Looking at Sailors on the Sea of Stars the Gatehouse has 2 and the Tower of the Beast (which I think is expected to be the funnel finale) has 6 and a champion. I know the finale should be especially tough but that's a pretty big difference in encounter difficulty.

I'm expecting 12-15 funnel characters and 2 beastmen doesn't seem like it will be much of a challenge, though I haven't run a funnel so that may be an incorrect assumption.

Is there a general recommendation of X foes per Y funnel characters? 1:5? 1:4?

Thanks!

-Lauguz

[Fenris Ulfhamr]

When the angry mob of villagers storms the gatehouse in my games it just lulls them into a state of false confidence. What lies below usually pans out differently, so let them have their small victories!

Also, my games usually break at that point to go back to town, level up, etc. often to pick up in a future session. I use the characters downtime for the beastmen to learn as well, often posting more guards for the soon-to-be-returning heroes...

[GnomeBoy]

Even if the beastmen take out one Zero, that's one less Zero. Attrition is the name of the (funnel) game. And like Fenris says, let them have their victories -- makes the losses more meaningful. If it's all just loss, loss, loss, then you get numb.

If you want to soup them up, go ahead and roll their HD, which is likely to give them better hp than the average Zero hit can take down in one blow.

[BanjoJohn]

I haven't come up with a good rule myself, although I always have the gatehouse beastmen run into the tower after the players have gone into the courtyard, they always spend so much time checking out the courtyard they never go right away to the tower despite the warning signals the beastmen give off when they drop the you know what. So the group in the tower is always pretty big.


Doesnt seem as difficult as the 22 beastmen down in the temple.

I think DCC is one game where you dont really have to worry about an encounter being too weak or too strong for your players as long as there is a way for them to run away from the encounter to possibly live another day, knowing when not to fight is an important skill.