Too Many Minions

[Rethmar]

In an upcoming campaign, one of my players will be playing a Dread Necromancer.

Between Undead Mastery increasing his HD control cap, and various items and whatnot, he'll have a considerable amount of undead following him.
I mean, he'll have plenty even without the features and items listed above.

So, in a party of four, I feel like his turns are going to take a long time.
I don't want the other players to be bored or discouraged in between those turns, of course.

Am I just being paranoid; is it not really that big of a deal?

Or if it could be somewhat of a problem, have any members of the playground gone through this before?
Maybe made guidelines for the players involved to streamline the minion process?

Like, encourage a few stronger undead instead of a small army of skeletons? I'm not really sure, but I'd love to hear your input.

[hymer]

I'd warn the player that he only gets the same time to decide on his actions as everyone else, for the sake everyone's sanity and boredom. And then suggest him focusing his powers into, as you say, a few powerful servants rather than a host of lesser undead.

[dungeonnerd]

In regards to the army of small skeletons - he won't be using them. If he does, a third level caster enemy will destroy them all in the first round.

Personally, I find it better to get a small number of powerful pets - in this case, since your pets can't have more HD than you (it's in the casting - you can't create a single undead that has more HD than you), you either need to go out and steal one, or just make the three-six (depending on feats, etc) undead that you would get at your HD. And he might go through a couple levels with many minor minions, but the amusement of that will wear off quickly. It's far more effective to use max-HD creatures. You might want to point out Revived Fossil to him (Libris Mortis), when he gets a few levels under his belt - nothing says love like a megaraptor skeleton.

And, in truth, it won't eat up that much extra time. He'll cast a spell, then roll the handful of attacks his pets get, and move on. It will most likely take him longer to choose a spell than to direct his minions.

Easiest way to streamline is to force his pets to take their turn at the same time he does. That way, you don't have to track so many extra init orders in a round.

Also, don't forget that when an undead leaves his control (exceeds HD cap, etc) it still retains all the abilities and things it was created with, plus it tends to hate the person who created/controlled it. That's another plus to him using large amounts of small minions - once they turn on him, he'll find it prudent to be more careful and use bigger minions.

[Sudain]

No, it's an issue. I've been rogue who knew his stuff and could take my turn in 30 seconds or less. The summoners on the other hand... took a long time. I stopped counting and went to sleep. This happened in two campaigns - it is NOT just in your head.

Out of Character:
Couple things you can do; talk to your player about it. Give them the same time as everyone else; bring an sand/egg timer to enforce - it really helps.

In character:
A necromancer with a host of minions is going to attract attention and word of him will spread. So have the baddies prepair undeath to death; hire mercenary clerics, more AoE damage going off, etc...

[Morrolan]

Tell the player that he can only bring up to 2 minions with him (3 if he wants an undead mount), and have the rest of the minions do something useful, guarding the base, mining more obsidian etc..

Or have them bury themselves until they receive the command to take over the world. Or is he not that kind of necromancer? :smalltongue:

[Sudain]

...
Also, don't forget that when an undead leaves his control (exceeds HD cap, etc) it still retains all the abilities and things it was created with, plus it tends to hate the person who created/controlled it. That's another plus to him using large amounts of small minions - once they turn on him, he'll find it prudent to be more careful and use bigger minions.

Yup, bigger is better until he gets hit with a few negative levels.... *grin*

[hymer]

Or is he not that kind of necromancer? :smalltongue:

There's another kind?

[dungeonnerd]

Yup, bigger is better until he gets hit with a few negative levels.... *grin*

Exactly. *

I said he would find it prudent to use smaller number of more powerful minions. It's generally easier to deal with when you lose one, etc.

However, a good vampire slam or two from an invisible state turns a standard "yawn" combat into something far, far more scary.

*I do need to note here, however, that as DM you should not abuse the privilage. This tactic, while fun for you and challenging for the party, will make your DN feel like you're targeting him for playing the class, and punishing him for it. DO NOT OVERUSE. Get it in a couple times, but if you find it becomes a widely used tactics in your battles, get ready for a pissed off player.

[O.L.Scudmungus]

Divide all xp equally among all involved, mindless or otherwise! :smallsmile:

[mattie_p]

Out of character solution - If he wants an army of 100 skeletons, he has to buy the miniatures for them. :smallamused:

[Sgt. Cookie]

Sadly, a little ingenuity can make Miniatures needless. 100 pennies, a few sheets of paper, a pen, some glue and a free afternoon can give you all the tokens you need.

[Slipperychicken]

DMG2 Mob template has your back. Instead of 100 tiny minions, two or three swarm-like super minions to represent groups. It'll make tracking a lot easier, unless he has a million 1HD minions of different types, in which case you just smack him with a DMG or treat them all like skeletons.

[Andreaz]

white-room solution is the mob template.


Other than that everything is just a consequence of having too many minions... logistics and vulnerabilities of large groups!

[Slipperychicken]

white-room solution is the mob template.


What do you mean by "white room solution"? I can't find a defintion of that anywhere.

[Rethmar]

Thanks for the quick responses everyone. He's not a problem player, so I don't think he'll try outrageous things to slow the game.

He'll probably stick to a few strong minions.

I did like the negative level trick. That would suck. :smallbiggrin:

Cheers.

[nedz]

If you do find yourself in the situation where he has lots of weak minions then just have the monsters take them out. Minions 4 levels, or equivalent, less than the party are not combat relevant. They will drop quickly without you even having to try. If the player is any good, they will soon recognise this, and avoid this tactic.

TL;DR. this problem should be self correcting.

[mucco]

Well I've DMed a minion focused Dread Necro for a lot of time and into high levels, so I can give some insight.

Let's start off with two basic things.
1. Yes, his turns will take longer than everyone else. There is almost no way around it.
2. Force him to write down a sheet for each undead he owns.

Now, there are two main factors behind the time needed for a Dread's turn. The first one is how quick with math and good at thinking ahead and keeping track of stuff your player is. It is possible to do your minions' turn while the others are playing, since it is usually just some rolls. If he is able to, and he is honest, have him roll d20s and damage while other players are taking their turn. He can take note of them on a piece of paper and then read them out.

This shaves a lot of time away - I play an archer type in another campaign, who can shoot 10 arrows in a round, and my turns are known for being less than 10 seconds long: "DM, what's his AC?" "27." "Then... 65 piercing and 13 fire damage from four arrows." I've had my Dread player do this from time to time, and it helps a lot.

Second major factor is: what kind of undead does he have? If it is mindless minions, it takes less time. If it is intelligent creatures, it takes more. If the creatures have several different abilities, it takes a lot more.

Zombie: I charge, attack roll 28, if hit 23 damage.
Dread Warrior Fighter 11/Barbarian 1: Charge and pounce; first attack is a bull rush with shock trooper, pushing him on an ally, tripping both; second one is a disarm, then hit on the third attack.
Awakened dragon zombie: do I charge for massive damage, grapple the caster far away, or use entangling exhalation on the two melee enemies? Or just have it shield my character? Lemme think about it for a sec. Oh, do I have five flameskulls as well? Oh right, and my character has to do something too. I guess I'll just use Summon Monster for an Ice Devil that can make walls of ice around me. :smallsigh: (It's my player's routine)

A suggestion: don't ever allow him to ready/delay his minions' turns. It makes the most ginormous mess possible out of the initiative order.

[bobthe6th]

Personally, I find it better to get a small number of powerful pets - in this case, since your pets can't have more HD than you (it's in the casting - you can't create a single undead that has more HD than you)

to quote
"Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. (The desecrate spell doubles this limit)"

so, yeah, he is going to be doing all his animation in a desecration. By the level you can start animating as a dread necromancer, 8x3=24HD cap. The spell won't let you animate over 20. Though you have to admit even a 20HD skeleton isn't that terrifying... Offer him the ability to add HD to a body he is going to animate, so they are all a nice uniform 20HD. With a 18 starting charisma, and a +2 item, he will be animating up to 72HD. So three huge monsters and 12 floating HD to make smaller stuff.

Perhapce limit him to things he can understand, so bipedal humanoids/monstrous humanoids. Suddenly, he is a caster+3 warriors. they have easy to direct actions, and he can do some cool casting.

[Laserlight]

Like, encourage a few stronger undead instead of a small army of skeletons? I'm not really sure, but I'd love to hear your input.

Have him decide how many of which undead he's usually going to lug around. I'd like "a few heavies" but there may be circumstances where "hordes of the things" is the right approach.

Have him then develop a menu of tactical responses: "When fighting a caster, use A to negate casting, then B to take him out of the action."

Then consolidate. He won't have "72 skeletons" trotting around behind him; he'll have, say, four "groups of 18 skeletons" or three "group of 24s". It should be fairly easy to work out what the expected damage is on a target with any given AC; just apply that damage (plus/minus a die roll, if it makes you feel better) to the target. I wouldn't recommend more than four groups at the most because historically, even trained and experienced officers have trouble keeping track of more than four subunits--three would be better, and two would be better still.

[Pandiano]

I play minion masters myself.
Since normal humanoid undead are near worthless I tend to have 2-3 decent combatants controlled and LOTS of small worthless undead meat....erm.. boneshields. Per feat [Destructive Retribution] the small ones can at least be partially useful.
I hate it if my turns get too long so I:

- Use the small ones as battle field control without attacking with them (just place them as wall, you can make new faster than they are destroyed)
- let the DM handle them as distraction, or let them cause havoc without rolling dice like "your skeletons have kept X opponents occupied for Y rounds. The enemies have each taken 1w6-2w6 points of damage so far"

Those alone keep the turn streamlined and keeps the feel of a master of many minions.

[Andreaz]

What do you mean by "white room solution"? I can't find a defintion of that anywhere.White Room is a term I've used for a while now that means an isolated case: Just you and the enemy. No external features or world to imprint on.

[prufock]

Are the minions going to be taking actions every round that are distinct from all the other minions, or will they basically be a mob that attacks as a wave.

If it's a mob, you can do one of two things: use the Mob statistics block for groups of minions, or ask/demand that he borrow the Team Checks rule from Mutants and Masterminds for groups of like minions, at least for combat. Short form: a group attacks together, aiding one member who makes his normal attack roll with a +5 bonus. This will cut down on the number of d20 and damage rolls, while still making multiple minions more useful than a single minion.

[Silva Stormrage]

Thanks for the quick responses everyone. He's not a problem player, so I don't think he'll try outrageous things to slow the game.

He'll probably stick to a few strong minions.

I did like the negative level trick. That would suck. :smallbiggrin:

Cheers.

As pointed out else where in the thread 100 1 hd skeletons tens not to be the most efficient use of the undead. One suggestion I have seen elsewhere is to have the DN give a couple minions to the other players. Like if there is a mounted character in the party give him control of the zombie centaurs with lances. It tends to speed things up and gives the other players a chance to control minions. Don't force this upon the player if you think he wouldn't like it though.

A point of note though, Animate Dead is an instantaneous effect. You CAN'T lose control of your undead by taking a few negative levels. Animate Dead only checks your control cap when you animate them in the first place. The same goes with Rebuke. If that was true the Rod of Undead Mastery (It doubles your animate dead control pool) would be useless as whenever you dropped it your control would go back down to regular and thus you would lose control of a lot of undead. You would need to sovereign glue it to your hand or something.

[awa]

remember most undead are mindless he physical cant direct them to do to many diffrent things at once.

[Tvtyrant]

You could always have them do average attack and average damage instead of rolling. It would dramatically shorten the time their turns take, especially if they are zombies.

Another option I have used in the past is have all of the d6s conflated, so you role a single d6 and multiply it by the number of d6s the critter would normally role.

[Vorr]

You might want to rule how does he control his undead in the first place. As far as I know, the rules are very vague here. Animate dead says 'you just control them', but the command ability of evil priests takes a standard action.

So pick your action type to control. Free: just need to speak to them. Move: as if altering a spell. Standard: as per a cleric.

Then decide how many he can command a round. Obviously a standard action and a move action would use up his act per round per command per undead minion. But even a free action is ''only a few sentences'', so that is only three or four undead that can be commanded verbally per round.

Hopefully you don't have the type of player that would say ''I can command an infinite number of undead to do an infinite number of things instantaneously as a free action and still get my standard action.''

Fun With Words: Do the undead simply do, literary, what they are told, like mindless robots? Or does the caster give them a basic ''babies understanding of reality''? If the caster says ''get them'', will the undead grapple the foe or attack it(they were not commanded to attack after all). If commanded to ''kill them!'' how would the mindless undead know when they have killed a foe? Do they stop attacking if a foe drops and does not move?

If you go with pure verbal commands, that is no active link. So if you tell a lippy vampire to ''go jump in a lake'' it will walk away and jump into the nearest lake. If you want to say the caster commands the undead with a bit of his will and common sense, then that is a more active link...and would take at least a move action. Then the vampire would know that ''go jump into a lake'' is just ''leave me alone and shut up''.

You could use verbal commands for a mob of undead. Tell a group of skeletons to all ''attack'' for example. But it gets near impossible to do individual undead. Say you have ten skeletons attacking a group of elves and one elf drops his sword. How do you tell the closest skeleton to pick up the sword? Give each skeleton a number and write it on their skull? Give each skeleton a different item, so 'Chief'' is the skeleton with the bakers hat. Or just do the long way ''You there skeleton, second from the right of the oak tree in front of the gold elf''.

So it would seem that mental commands would work better. Plus mental commands would be secret. Plus mental commands could always be known in with lots of noise or say underwater. And mental commands always know one skeleton from another. But a mental command should be at least a move action.

Then how do programed commands work? If you tell and undead ''stand there and attack anything the comes near me'', then it might very well attack an ally or a butterfly...''anything'' that comes near you(even a leaf blowing in the wind). Once you give a command, does the undead follow it forever? How does changing a command work? Do new commands erase old ones? How long is a command stored? If you tell the vampire ''never hurt Dori'', but days later tell it to ''kill Dori'' does it erase the old command?

You can make the call yourself, or ask the player they way he likes it. If he wants free speech actions, then impose the word problems. If he wants to take move actions, allow his understanding of the action to be transmuted with the command. Standard actions should give full understanding. If he wants to command a verbal undead mob, have him give up single commands in the same round. Ask if he wants any programmed actions, and set a limit based on the type of control.

[mishka_shaw]

Our dread necromancer had a similar problem when he started ramping up the goons.

I made it so that his undead shared his initiative (no idea if they are meant to or not anyway) and that he also had a very simple stat sheet for them on hand.

If things still get out of hand than you can do it so that after a certain limit (say 3-5 undead) the rest come under friendly DM control so that you can just speed-roll and attack with them in a fraction of the time, since you know the target AC and can use dice-rollers en-mass.

[Acanous]

Undead obey simple commands, but "Protect me" is pretty simple and would get him a screen of undead that won't let anything threatening approach.
If you're wondering what to do about large groups of undead, have your casters prep Fireball. I wouldn't recommend doing it all the time (It costs the guy WBL to get these zombies) but to thin the herd? Go ahead and fire one or two off if things start dragging on.