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So my players have beaten lots of orcs and trolls and minor undead adversaries (and evil men) but when I look through the books and see stats for say, the Balrog, I wonder if anyone has loremastered a game where players beat a Balrog, or dragon, or Nazgul or something. Or did they just (wisely) run?

There are stats for the Balrog in the Moria.
You really don't want to fight it.

The hardest thing that we fought was the Doom of Nenuial. That was an awesome adventure, very well written.

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Wow. Sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, I've got the Balrog stats in Moria, just wondered if anyone had ever fought it (let alone beat it). The Doom of Nenuiel sounds cool, as does a weakened Balrog with all those famous weapons, and descendant of Scatha! And all the players survived?
On a related note, do your player characters die very often? None of mine have but there have been a couple close calls, sometimes not even due to combat!

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We‘ve played through Laughter of Dragons and my players managed to kill Raenar, the colddragon. It was quite the epic fight!

For my players (wisdom and valour lvl 3) that was the Fastitocalon. The hideous toughness made it a lengthy fight.

How do you guys balance encounters for your party? In other words how many orcs is too many?

Usually I just add up the Endurance ratings of the adversaries and compare it to the players. That‘s mostly 2 or 3 weaker Orcs like Goblin Archers per player, or 1 or 2 tougher per player and mostly one bigger enemy like a Troll or a big bad Orc. And then I combine the above.

For beginners I try to keep it low key. With wisdom 3 and weapons 3-4 I tend to give them hell.

During a fight Hope and Hate are a good way to balance the stakes. If the Heroes are unlucky, they invest more Hope, if the adversaries keep missing, I start to invest more Hate.

But also your surroundings can be a big advantage for the group, to grand +1d. If they have good ideas like higher ground for archers I award them with a bonus.

My players survived a fight with Mormog the black olog hai captain, from RotLR, together with his Troll bodyguard, and a Nazgul.. But only with the help of the lamp of Balti in Darkening of Mirkwood. They did not manage to slay the Nazgul and Mormog, but it was epic, when they drove them away!

NB. I always add more opponents, than the adventures suggests, but my players are also very combat orientated, amd somehow they manage .

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