5 person Level 5 party.
>>97353633really depends on the partya level 5 cleric would shitter shatter (most of) the fight with one spirit guardians spell
>>97353633in theory this should be a match for four level 10s based on the CRin practice one fireball will nuke both ghouls and all four zombies, so by turn 2 its just the ghost and the mimics (unless you play into the regeneration i guess but even then sickening radiance is on the cards)ghosts are crazy dangerous, but they can only do so much attribute damage per turn and you have five people to spread the strainso if you have fireball or sickening radiance prepped, and you have a frontline with respectable CON this will be safely winnable. if you have a bunch of jank multiclasses or shitters who dont contribute to combat then this will probably get at least one of them killedbasically you'll know how it's going to go by the end of round 1
>>97353633Someone might die. Depends on how many resources they have going into the fight. Zombies are very swingy, if the party has plenty of radiant damage they’re pushovers but if they get a bunch of saves I’ve seen a single zombie tpk an entire level 1 party.
>>97353633If you want to make it less deadly have some of the enemies enter a round or two later or the mimic not do anything until it’s “triggered”
>>97354073Or have the encounter begin with the Mimics already in combat with the Undead. If the party start off very well, everyone remaining goes against them instead; if they perform poorly then they have Mimic ally until all the dead are down.
Stuff like this is super dependent on terrain and party makeup, this could potentially be a cakewalk if all the melee-only undead get mulched by something like Spiked Growth and there's just a ghost left to get focus fired with ranged attacks, or it could be instant TPK if they get surrounded indoors and somebody's unluckily paralyzed by a ghoul right off the bat. If the party has full prep time and knowledge of what they're facing and can set the battlefield, even at level 5 this is manageable. If you're just marching into a haunted house or dungeon they're probably losing at least one character.
Why is the ghost a generic combatant? Ghosts used to be something special, you encountered one and maybe it knew it was a ghost, maybe it didn't. We encountered one once that was a looping messenger whom died before he delivered his message centuries ago, and putting him to rest was a fun challenge. Make it something interesting, the ghost of a long dead adventurer seeking his missing party, a noble bound to a family heirloon worn by one of the zombies or dropped in the dungeon at some point, the ghost of a priestess unable to find rest as her corpse lies on cursed ground...Don't make it a combat encounter, use your brain.
>>97353633The mímic ruins the theme unless he's the one that killed the rest
>>97353633>Modern DnDIt's shit and the only way to make it not shit is to play an older edition or a different game.>>97354589Also this. This summarizes everything wrong with modern consoomer slop DnD.
>>97354589PArt of what ruined it is the idea of a "balanced encounter"Back in the day, the encounter is just what existed there. Whether or not you could fight it was a choice you had to make.
