Hey everyone! I’m a multi year DM in D&D and have been running 15 sessions so far for my party of 5 PCs. The piece that I often struggle with is having all the adversaries in a fight feel like they matter.
For example, with 5 PCs I’m often up to 17BP, and that ends up being a lot of bodies on a field, and a lot of them feel stagnant as a result. I know you can tier up and add bonuses to meet BP as well but I’ve been not finding a ton of success striking the right balance there.
I’d love any ideas and thoughts GMs of higher PC counts have done to prevent there being “standing there” adversaries.
Another piece that I try to fit in narratively (not often but it has come up) is how to treat “allies” that they are running to back up on a battlefield. As an example, a group of soldiers from a town they are in are fighting off some creatures trying to get in, so the PCs come help. For that I’ve tried some countdowns around them dealing some damage or a reaction to give advantage to a party member on something, but similarly it can get to the point of “what are these guys doing?”
For this I know Daggerheart isn’t really designed for allies on the battlefield but sometimes narratively it will happen.
Any ideas on these sorts of things would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much!