Waves of foes in encounters

[Topdecker]

I am busy converting a module for Beasts & Barbarians. In it, the encounter lasts 4 rounds and introduces 2 x (number of players) chump foes every round. The goal is to...

If, at the end of the last round, there is less than one enemy per hero in the area, the party has won the encounter.

First, I plan on extending the combat to 5 rounds. The reason being is that the groups appear in medium cover - and if the minions go last or near last on the 4th round, the players may not have a very good chance of harming that wave. This situation could also happen on any of the previous rounds, so I will bend a little bit in order to improve the likelihood of success.

It is also sort of weird in terms of the victory goals. Generally speaking, knowing what the goals are early on allows the players to at least attempt to be successful. Not knowing the goals (and there is no mechanism in the encounter for this) means that the players will not be in a huge hurry and will be acting sanely and carefully. I guess that I will introduce an officer that will get cut down right after stressing how important it is to take waves pf enemies out so they can flank another group.

I'd prefer not to have a 'mini-game' discussion outside of the role play. This situation is pretty common in RPG modules - if the players do something, they get a special reward or don't get a penalty, but don't tell them about it or set it up so they understand the goals.

Anyhow, all blathering aside, here is the actual problem....

Troops arrive in waves, one wave per round. I have created 4 encounters for this, one for each wave. At the end of each round, the GM (me) would introduce the new opponents and then go to the next round.

The other option would be to create a single encounter and to leave groups of troops 'invisible' and then make them visible on the round that they go active - or just before the start of the round.

I went with 4 encounters because I didn't want the extra cards drawn for invisible groups. The downside is that if I forget to place them at the end of the round, it will get funky.

Anyhow, any thoughts on what the better of the two solutions are? (All in one encounter, or each wave in independent encounters.) I worry that I am missing some piece of encounter logic

Thanks!

[Zacchaeus]

I would certainly go with 4 separate encounters. One big encounter with switching on invisible enemies could get unwieldy.

[Topdecker]

Yeah, that is how I decided to go. Thanks for the feedback! I suspect that I am mostly uneasy about the hidden goals as opposed to more mechanical parts of creating the encounter.

[Ikael]

...the encounter lasts 4 rounds and introduces 2 x (number of players) chump foes every round...

Small hint: you can define the 2 x PC number of enemies if you use random battles. There you can use count expression: 2*$PC

[Topdecker]

Small hint: you can define the 2 x PC number of enemies if you use random battles. There you can use count expression: 2*$PC

So you place like a dozen enemies on the map and the used ones get placed? Kinda curious about the placement on the battle maps. And I am guessing that the 2*$PC requires editing an XML file

[Ikael]

So you place like a dozen enemies on the map and the used ones get placed? Kinda curious about the placement on the battle maps. And I am guessing that the 2*$PC requires editing an XML file

Random battle doesn't do token placement, instead it will create new encounter and you can do the placement on the run