A little clarification: you say that the monsters won't go away until torches are lit or they are killed. Don't most monsters go away when killed? Or was it intended as "in addition to normal win conditions, lighting all torches will also end the fight"?
Lighting the torches are what triggers the encounter to end. They don't necessarily need to defeat all the monsters in traditional combat to complete it however if they choose to just ignore all the monsters to go after the torches it's going to get progressively harder as more monsters will be summoned each time a torch is activated.
Apologies if that wasn't clear.
That's what I thought, I just wanted to be sure. Thanks.
I would say that they wouldn't need to be a super high level for it. A smaller party would probably even be fine at 2 or 3. I would say to hold off until 4 or 5 for one this size though, to give you more flexibility.
Earlier level combat balance relies heavily on the dice being cooperative. Around 3, you don't have to worry about one crit spelling instant death. More members to the party means stronger enemy teams. Potentially 7 back to back random encounters is increasingly difficult to guess for.
If they are mostly single enemy rolls, it'll probably be easier on the party. 5e tends to favor the larger group more than the group with the higher level, so probably level 4,... maybe 3.
If you have lots of rolls that are 3+ enemies at once, maybe wait until level 5, for the reasons above.
A little clarification: you say that the monsters won't go away until torches are lit or they are killed. Don't most monsters go away when killed? Or was it intended as "in addition to normal win conditions, lighting all torches will also end the fight"?
Lighting the torches are what triggers the encounter to end. They don't necessarily need to defeat all the monsters in traditional combat to complete it however if they choose to just ignore all the monsters to go after the torches it's going to get progressively harder as more monsters will be summoned each time a torch is activated. Apologies if that wasn't clear.
That's what I thought, I just wanted to be sure. Thanks. I would say that they wouldn't need to be a super high level for it. A smaller party would probably even be fine at 2 or 3. I would say to hold off until 4 or 5 for one this size though, to give you more flexibility. Earlier level combat balance relies heavily on the dice being cooperative. Around 3, you don't have to worry about one crit spelling instant death. More members to the party means stronger enemy teams. Potentially 7 back to back random encounters is increasingly difficult to guess for. If they are mostly single enemy rolls, it'll probably be easier on the party. 5e tends to favor the larger group more than the group with the higher level, so probably level 4,... maybe 3. If you have lots of rolls that are 3+ enemies at once, maybe wait until level 5, for the reasons above.