Mobs/Mooks and Whirlwind Attack

[roguerouge]

One of the things that I've always disliked about mob templated creatures is that they are unfair to players who invest in feats like Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack. The player invested in a feat chain, only to have the feat chain invalidated precisely when it's going to be most useful and dramatically interesting. Still, mobs are an elegant solution to a common high-level game problem.

Typically, the house rule solution seems to be one of the following:

• Cleave adds +1d6 damage, Great Cleave +3d6, and Whirlwind Attack +5d6
• Cleave gives double damage, Great Cleave x3, Whirlwind Attack x4
• For every individual creature you would hit with your attack, you impose two negative levels. (i.e. it's not just for spells anymore).

I think that these are fine solutions. But what if we take advantage of the fact that a Whirlwind attacker has spring attack in designing a house rule for this situation?

Proposed house rule: For every square you can reach with Whirlwind Attack, you get an attack against the creature.

If you whirlwind on the outer edge of the creature, you get three attacks:

xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
o

If you whirlwind within the creature, you get eight attacks:

xxxx
xoxx
xxxx
xxxx

If you spring attack, you get one attack, as normal.

If you great cleave from the outer rank into the creature, you get up to seven attacks:

Start: Cleaving:
xxxx xxxx
xxxx xxxx
xxxx xxxx
xxxx x
o o

Steps in: Finishes:
xxxx xxxx
xxxx xxxx
xxxx x
ox o
This is, admittedly, a mook system rather than a fearsome mob. Would this work to model such an event?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Interesting...

The idea you had for non-reach weapons would generally make it inferior to a full attack if at the outer edge of the mob. Inside it or with a spiked chain or large size via spell, etc... it could end up being better. Not bad. As for the "typical solutions":

2 negative levels per creature you could hit sounds incredibly obscene.
The flat +dice damage option seems really meh.
I'm not sure Cleave SHOULD help at all...it's onl one extra attack, right? Thus, Great Cleave could be x2 and WW x3, since x4 seems a little crazy.

For what it's worth, my houserule for swarms and WW attack has been "WW attack is effectively an area attack for the purposes of damage dealt to a swarm (you still have to roll once to hit vs. AC)." No idea if that's balanced or useful, as no player in my group has ever taken WW Attack... :/ I don't use mob rules, but I'd probably just rule the same for them.

[roguerouge]

Ah. Clarification: by hit individual creature, I mean kill. By the time you're using mobs, that's a given, but it wasn't clear.

[Ashtagon]

Simple solution (and I'm surprised its neither a common solution nor the official rule):

If the damage you dealt would have been enough to drop an "average" individual (assume 1/3 maximum possible hp, to take into account averaged injuries from previous attacks and sub-par individuals), your cleave/great cleave gets an extra attack as if it had actually downed a creature.

Whirlwind attacks are assumed to make one attack per square of mob which is within range, exactly as if each square was occupied by an individual member of that mob's species.

[roguerouge]

There are 48 creatures per mob, so if you hit AC 6 for a mob of humans, you down a creature, if you do 5 hp of damage.

[Ashtagon]

Sanity check time...

Cleave/great cleave/whirlwind attack - none of these allow you to take a step between attacks, so unless the target was in reach at the start of your attack sequence, you can't hit it.

Someone point me to the rulebook that has the mob template definition? Found it... DMG2 page 59.

And no surprise, there's ambiguity in the rules. They say the mob can't conduct any special attack that requires an action. Logically, this would prevent the mob from initiating or maintaining a grapple. Yet later on the article discusses how a mob can grapple others, and the granted bonus feats can't actually be used unless the mob spends an action on the special attack (which earlier on it was said a mob cannot spend actions to perform special attacks).

But anyway, our mob of humans typically has 135 hp (split between 48 humans). And a typical individual commoner will have 3 hp. With my houserule:

Whirlwind: Assuming you are on the edge, you get 3 attacks. In the middle, 8 attacks.

Cleave/great cleave: As long as each attack deals at least (1/3 maximum an individual could have, or 1 hp against a mob of commoners), you get another attack, up to the limit of what was in range, and no more than one extra attack for cleave.

The RAW mob rules do note that "killing" a mob is really dispersing it, causing most of them to flee, not actually slaying each and every individual. As such, the official rule (each specific slain individual counts as a 2 negative levels) is more of a morale effect than a necrotic effect.

[Runestar]

Doesn't the fact that you are already dealing full damage to a mob count for something?

Say we are facing 10 1st lv warriors, each of 5hp. A 1st lv barb already deals 2d6+9, or 16 damage average while raging. Clearly, this is overkill, since excess damage is basically wasted.

But against a mob with 1 unified hp pool, that 16 damage could easily translate into killing 3 warriors. Could that not be seen as already incorporating some sort of cleave effect?

[Ashtagon]

Not really. Mob hp are not individual creature hp, but rather a mechanic to represent the morale of the mob.

And if you see the barbarian as getting cleave when he does 16 hp, what does the barbarian who does that much damage and ALSO has the Cleave feat get?

fwiw, I think the mob rules are kinda clunky, but if they work for you, go for it.

[roguerouge]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

Sanity check time...

Cleave/great cleave/whirlwind attack - none of these allow you to take a step between attacks, so unless the target was in reach at the start of your attack sequence, you can't hit it.

Sorry about the great cleave thing--was thinking of supreme cleave for the 5' step.

[roguerouge]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

And if you see the barbarian as getting cleave when he does 16 hp, what does the barbarian who does that much damage and ALSO has the Cleave feat get?

Especially since this exact combat situation is the precise reason why one takes those feats and whirlwind attack in the first place.

[Asha'man]

And for that reason, I personally don't use mobs. If I really wanted a campaign where a mundane mob could present a danger to an accomplished group of adventurers, I'd run E6.