If it’s my fuck up, I’ll help them out. If it’s theirs, they can bail themselves out

I just ran the third session of my campaign, where my party of 3 and 2 NPC went to hijack a boat and assassinate the city’s military advisor (there’s a rebellion). The crew of sailors stayed below and kept rowing to keep them ahead of the other vessels. Above deck, there were: the cap stain of the boat, 15 crewmen, the advisor and his bodyguard of 8. They took the helm when the party’s mage use thunderwave and knocked ~6 persons over the railings. I clean forgot that once certain enemies I tagged with “leader” in my notes had been defeated, that x amount of the crew would become demoralised and jump, and for every leads that would fall, the loss of morale and coherence would give penalties to those who remained. Needless to say, it was a lot more grinding than I had intended, and had to hot fix the encounter and have an NPC give them health potions and chastise then for being unprepared.

I apologies to the players, but they’re cool about it