Simple RAW for 3.5: 38 pages, and I still don't know how to play D&D

[Duke of Urrel]

Q. 97 - When creature has the mob template, but it also has fast healing. How much is healed?

A 97

Ask your dungeon master.

A mob is a group of creatures of Small, Medium, or Large size that you treat as a single creature for the sake of simplicity. The rules for mobs, which appear on pages 59 to 61 of the DUNGEON MASTER'S GUIDE II, do not specify how a mob uses the Fast Healing ability (or any similar ability, such as the Regeneration ability). However, I can think of a method that makes sense.

According to the rules, a mob may consist of twelve creatures of Large size. Suppose a mob consists of twelve formian myrmarchs, each of which has the extraordinary Fast Healing ability and heals two Hit Points per round.

If we treat these formian myrmarchs as individual creatures rather than as a mob, then the number of Hit Points healed per round depends on the number of formian myrmarchs that are attacked per round. Thus, if two formian myrmarchs take damage in the same round, then they heal a total of four Hit Points; if three formian myrmarchs take damage in the same round, then they heal a total of six Hit Points; and so on.

If you treat all the formian myrmarchs as belonging to a single Gargantuan creature, that is, a mob, I think it makes sense to say that a mob with the Fast Healing ability applies this ability as many times per round as it takes damage in that round. Thus, if you damage a formian myrmarch mob only once in a round, it should heal only two Hit Points; but if you damage it twice in the same round, it should heal four Hit Points; if you damage it three times, six Hit Points; if you damage it four times, eight Hit Points; and so on.

Your dungeon master may reasonably assume that not all attacks against a mob will be divided equally among its members. Some members will be attacked more than once and others not at all. Consequently, your dungeon master may decide that in a mob of twelve formian myrmarchs, only six are exposed to weapon attacks, so that the mob as a whole can apply the Fast Healing feat no more than six times in one round, even if the mob is attacked more than six times in that round.

We may apply a different method when a twelve-member formian myrmarch mob is damaged by an area spell (which, following the rules, inflicts 50% extra damage on a mob). Depending on the size of the spell's area of effect, the spell may damage part of the mob or all of it; thus, we may assume that the area spell damages some fraction of the twelve formian myrmarchs, or perhaps all twelve of them, all at once. If all twelve of the mob's members are damaged, then the mob should heal 24 Hit Points after the attack. But if only half of the mob's members are damaged by the area spell, then the mob should heal only 12 Hit Points after the attack.

Of course, these proposals are only suggestions. As I admitted at the start, the rules don't dictate what method you should use to determine how Fast Healing works for a mob. The whole point of mobs is to make the rules simpler, not more complicated, and the method that I have proposed here may already be too complicated for some dungeon masters.

So ... ask your dungeon master.