twas_Brillig
2017-02-19, 11:51 AM
Running large numbers of creatures is conceptually neat, but often impractical. What rules or techniques do people use to make them easier, or more interesting? The gang rules in Apocalypse World (website (http://apocalypse-world.com/), PDF (http://apocalypse-world.com/ApocalypseWorldBasicRefbook2ndEd.pdf)) and its derivatives are cool examples, but I don't know if they translate easily to D&D.
Inspired by this post (http://tinyurl.com/zjce94b) (tinyurl since the autocensor doesn't like the blog being named "f---yeahdnd"):
I’ve been playing a bit too much Vermintide, a.k.a. Left4Skaven, recently, and it’s a seriously fun game if you just want to play a dwarf shooting ratmen all day every day.
Playing the game has got me thinking that a D&D game in the style of Vermintide would be pretty sweet. However, keeping track of the number of monsters you generally get in Vermintide would be a serious drain on the DM’s mental faculties. Thankfully, the genius designer Kevin Crawford has made a very good and simple system for handling large mobs of creatures for his game Godbound which, because of the shared DNA between D&D and Godbound, converts neatly into D&D.
First of all, a couple of notes about mobs: a mob is a large number of creatures. Not a discrete amount, but somewhere around a dozen or so. Larger mobs are possible, but these rules assume that a single mob can fit into a large room all at once. Secondly, these rules assume that you’re not playing on a grid with exact measures, but with a very abstract system where exact positioning doesn’t often matter. Thirdly, for the sake of rules a mob is regarded as a single creature, although due to its amorphous nature it has a few special rules.
Making a mob is simple: take a monster (I’m assuming a humanoid monster: these rules probably won’t scale well with other types of creatures). Double its hit dice. Add ten hit dice. Done. The rest of the mob’s statistics remain the same: it has the same attacks and damage, armor class, ability bonuses and skills as a single creature of its type.
When the mob uses an attack action it can attack every enemy engaged with it once. This means that if a group of five adventurers is fighting a mob of kobolds in a room, the mob will get to attack each of the five adventurers once.
The best way to defend against a mob is to simply limit their approach: this can be achieved best by taking them on in a bottleneck. In such a situation the mob can obviously only target the characters defending the bottleneck. However, the mob can easily overwhelm even the staunchest defender: a mob can still attempt to move through a defending character. The defending character has a choice of simply letting them through (although they still get an opportunity attack) or to try to stop them: this is resolved as an opposed Strength check, but the mob always counts as having Advantage on the check simply due to sheer numbers. Furthermore, if the position is simply too large for the character to cover they suffer Disadvantage on their check. Do note that simply having another character aiding you is enough to give you Advantage as per usual. Should the mob win the check the defending character (or characters if there was another one aiding them) falls prone and the mob can move past them unhindered. Should the mob lose their advance is stopped and the defending character gets to make an opportunity attack as an added bonus.
Area of effect attacks and other abilities that can hit multiple creatures at once always deal their maximum damage to a mob. So, a Wizard throwing a 8d6 fireball at a mob will always deal 48 points of damage to the mob. If there are any non-mob creatures in the area, roll damage on them as normal. As per usual, the mob can still make a saving throw should the spell allow for one.
For the sake of monster abilities that are based on the monster having an ally at hand the mob always counts as having an ally nearby. This makes kobolds and hobgoblins perfect for mobs, incidentally.
Let’s take the example of a mob of kobolds to analyze this for a moment: a single kobold has 2d6-2 hit points. Doubling that and adding ten gives us 14 hit dice, or 14d6-14 after accounting for Constitution modifiers. A mob of kobolds thus has an average of 35 hit points, the same as 7 kobolds.
A mob of kobolds is better for the DM than having to run 7 kobolds separately because they don’t need to keep track of individual positioning for each kobold. It also reduces the amount of attacks that need to be made for the kobolds to at most one per PC. On the other hand, the mob by its amorphous and abstract nature does not allow for the DM to use underhanded tactics to such a great extent, and a mob is best used with other monsters.
A mob of kobolds is a mixed bag for the players: on one hand, the mob has a single pool of hit points, meaning that if a character deals more than enough damage to kill a single kobold, none of that is wasted. On the other hand, since the mob has a single pool of hit points the mob can attack as if it were at full strength (i.e. attack each PC once per turn) all the way until it drops.
To make a larger mob, simply double or triple the mob’s hit dice. A mob with double the hit dice of a normal mob can easily represent a military squad, while a mob with triple the hit dice is probably already a small warband. In doing so the mob’s number of attacks also increases: a mob with double the hit dice of a normal mob gets two attacks against each creature engaged with it, and so on.
One thing to consider: mobs make for boring combat encounters by themselves. Their abstract nature means that if you simply throw a mob at the PCs the combat easily becomes a boring slog as the players whittle at the mob until it runs out of hit points. The mob is best used as a background element or an extra complication in a combat against a more interesting enemy or group of enemies. But that warrants another post.
A note on the sleep spell: since in 5th edition a sleep spell puts to sleep 5d8 hit points worth of monsters, assume that if used against a mob it simply deals that many hit points of damage to the mob. No need to make it more complicated than that.
Inspired by this post (http://tinyurl.com/zjce94b) (tinyurl since the autocensor doesn't like the blog being named "f---yeahdnd"):
I’ve been playing a bit too much Vermintide, a.k.a. Left4Skaven, recently, and it’s a seriously fun game if you just want to play a dwarf shooting ratmen all day every day.
Playing the game has got me thinking that a D&D game in the style of Vermintide would be pretty sweet. However, keeping track of the number of monsters you generally get in Vermintide would be a serious drain on the DM’s mental faculties. Thankfully, the genius designer Kevin Crawford has made a very good and simple system for handling large mobs of creatures for his game Godbound which, because of the shared DNA between D&D and Godbound, converts neatly into D&D.
First of all, a couple of notes about mobs: a mob is a large number of creatures. Not a discrete amount, but somewhere around a dozen or so. Larger mobs are possible, but these rules assume that a single mob can fit into a large room all at once. Secondly, these rules assume that you’re not playing on a grid with exact measures, but with a very abstract system where exact positioning doesn’t often matter. Thirdly, for the sake of rules a mob is regarded as a single creature, although due to its amorphous nature it has a few special rules.
Making a mob is simple: take a monster (I’m assuming a humanoid monster: these rules probably won’t scale well with other types of creatures). Double its hit dice. Add ten hit dice. Done. The rest of the mob’s statistics remain the same: it has the same attacks and damage, armor class, ability bonuses and skills as a single creature of its type.
When the mob uses an attack action it can attack every enemy engaged with it once. This means that if a group of five adventurers is fighting a mob of kobolds in a room, the mob will get to attack each of the five adventurers once.
The best way to defend against a mob is to simply limit their approach: this can be achieved best by taking them on in a bottleneck. In such a situation the mob can obviously only target the characters defending the bottleneck. However, the mob can easily overwhelm even the staunchest defender: a mob can still attempt to move through a defending character. The defending character has a choice of simply letting them through (although they still get an opportunity attack) or to try to stop them: this is resolved as an opposed Strength check, but the mob always counts as having Advantage on the check simply due to sheer numbers. Furthermore, if the position is simply too large for the character to cover they suffer Disadvantage on their check. Do note that simply having another character aiding you is enough to give you Advantage as per usual. Should the mob win the check the defending character (or characters if there was another one aiding them) falls prone and the mob can move past them unhindered. Should the mob lose their advance is stopped and the defending character gets to make an opportunity attack as an added bonus.
Area of effect attacks and other abilities that can hit multiple creatures at once always deal their maximum damage to a mob. So, a Wizard throwing a 8d6 fireball at a mob will always deal 48 points of damage to the mob. If there are any non-mob creatures in the area, roll damage on them as normal. As per usual, the mob can still make a saving throw should the spell allow for one.
For the sake of monster abilities that are based on the monster having an ally at hand the mob always counts as having an ally nearby. This makes kobolds and hobgoblins perfect for mobs, incidentally.
Let’s take the example of a mob of kobolds to analyze this for a moment: a single kobold has 2d6-2 hit points. Doubling that and adding ten gives us 14 hit dice, or 14d6-14 after accounting for Constitution modifiers. A mob of kobolds thus has an average of 35 hit points, the same as 7 kobolds.
A mob of kobolds is better for the DM than having to run 7 kobolds separately because they don’t need to keep track of individual positioning for each kobold. It also reduces the amount of attacks that need to be made for the kobolds to at most one per PC. On the other hand, the mob by its amorphous and abstract nature does not allow for the DM to use underhanded tactics to such a great extent, and a mob is best used with other monsters.
A mob of kobolds is a mixed bag for the players: on one hand, the mob has a single pool of hit points, meaning that if a character deals more than enough damage to kill a single kobold, none of that is wasted. On the other hand, since the mob has a single pool of hit points the mob can attack as if it were at full strength (i.e. attack each PC once per turn) all the way until it drops.
To make a larger mob, simply double or triple the mob’s hit dice. A mob with double the hit dice of a normal mob can easily represent a military squad, while a mob with triple the hit dice is probably already a small warband. In doing so the mob’s number of attacks also increases: a mob with double the hit dice of a normal mob gets two attacks against each creature engaged with it, and so on.
One thing to consider: mobs make for boring combat encounters by themselves. Their abstract nature means that if you simply throw a mob at the PCs the combat easily becomes a boring slog as the players whittle at the mob until it runs out of hit points. The mob is best used as a background element or an extra complication in a combat against a more interesting enemy or group of enemies. But that warrants another post.
A note on the sleep spell: since in 5th edition a sleep spell puts to sleep 5d8 hit points worth of monsters, assume that if used against a mob it simply deals that many hit points of damage to the mob. No need to make it more complicated than that.