Template: mob

No, not The Mob, although that could be a fun template too.

This is something to represent a big group of lowly, 1-2HD creatures, to make running big battles (with scores or hundreds of mooks) easier. I could have used one of the mass combat rulesets out there, but none of them are really designed for what I want: running big fights between a huge horde of mooks, and a few high-level PCs. Instead of representing each orc with an individual mini/counter and rolling hundreds of attack rolls, you can glomp 20-30 of them into one collective, thus making the logistics much simpler. It's like a swarm, but for bigger creatures.


Mob

"Mob" is an inherited template that can be added to any Small or Medium creature with 2 HD or fewer. Rather than a single individual, a mob represents 20-30 individual base creatures. A mob retains all the characteristics of the base creature, except as noted here.

Size and Type: Change size to colossal, but do not recalculate the creature's abilities, attacks or AC. Type remains unchanged.

Hit Dice: Multiply the base creature's HD by 20. Apply Con bonus (if any) as normal to each HD.

AC: A mob takes a -5 penalty to AC.

Attacks: A mob retains all the attacks of the base creature. It gains a +15 bonus to all attack rolls and grapple checks.

Space/Reach: Space becomes 30'. A mob's space is shapeable, like that of a swarm. A mob has no reach; it attacks enemies by surrounding them, much as a swarm does.

Special Qualities: A mob retains all the special qualities of the base creature, and gains the following.

Dispersed (Ex): A mob is immune to grappling, bull rush, trip, disarm, and sundering attempts. In turn, it cannot bull rush, trip, disarm or sunder. Area spells and effects with a burst, spread, cone, or emanation area of effect do double damage to a mob. Targeted spells and effects do not affect a mob unless the spell or effect can target at least 20 individual creatures. A mob is immune to critical hits and sneak attack, and can't be flanked.

A mob provokes attacks of opportunity as normal. An enemy with multiple attacks of opportunity per round (eg via the Combat Reflexes feat) can choose to take as many attacks of opportunity as they want, up to their limit per round, each time the mob provokes an attack of opportunity. This is an exception to the rule that you can only make one attack per given opportunity.

A mob is treated as 8 creatures for the purposes of figuring melee and ranged weapon attacks that affect multiple targets simultaneously (eg Whirlwind Attack).

Skills: A mob gains a +5 bonus to Listen and Spot checks, and a -5 penalty to Hide and Move Silently checks.


Example mob

This mob uses a 1st level orc warrior as the base creature.

Colossal Humanoid (orc)
Hit Dice: 20d8+20 (110 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 20 ft (base 30 ft)
Armor Class: 8 (+3 studded leather armour, -5 size), touch 5, flat-footed 8
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+19
Attack: Falchion +19 melee (2d4+4/18-20) or javelin +16 ranged (1d6+3)
Full Attack: Falchion +19 melee (2d4+4/18-20) or javelin +16 ranged (1d6+3)
Space/Reach: 30 ft (shapeable)/0 ft
Special Attacks: --
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft, light sensitivity, dispersed
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +0, Will -2
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 7, Cha 6
Skills: Hide -6, Listen +6, Move Silently -6, Spot +6
Feats: Alertness
Environment: Temperate hills
Organization: --
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Advancement: --
Level Adjustment: --

Iffy....I'd be tempted to give up the weapon damage (since they can't really wield weapons effectively) and just give them upped swarm damage (say, d8's instead of d6's). I'd also let them keep a reach, let them grapple (being overrun by a mob is a common method of death here in College Sportsville, after all...), keep them closer to the Swarm in that they don't have size penalties for AC, and are affected largely as if they're Medium Humanoids instead of whatever it is they are. I'd also try to keep the 10-ft. space, though I could see upping it...

Where'd you get +15 attack from? Why the +20 HD? Just pure 'beefing'? Can't they have less HD (since they're not getting killed to a man, usually....)?


So, extrapolating from the swarm rules:
Mobs are closely-packed, disorganized creatures that move an attack as a single unit. They have a single HD, hp, Init, speed, and AC, and saves.
We'll say for each 10-ft. space a mob has about 75 people (extraploating from the 300 Tinies in the same space). There's so many, because they're crawling all over each other, and whatever they're hitting.
Because they're bigger, a mob doesn't have to move into a space to attack -- it has the same reach as the constituent creatures (5 ft. in this case). They also don't take reduced weapon damage. They still take extra damage from area effects (+50%). They're only succeptible to winds as normal critters are. They deal damage from a mob attack instead of a normal attack, much like a swarm does. Though all d6's for swarms become d8's in the hands of a mob (or higher, for bigger critters, maybe). They do this damage automatically. They can still distract like a swarm.
We'll let 'em grapple, too...in order to beat a mob in a grapple, you'd have to beat the grapple checks of as many creatures that can grapple you at once(four of the same size). When a mob grapples, however, it is never considered grappled.

So an orc mob would be something like:
Medium Humanoid (mob)
Hit Dice: 8d8+8 (44 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 13 (+3 armor), touch 10, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple:+1/+4
Attack/Full Attack: Mob (2d8)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.

It'd have saves, skills, ext. like an 8 HD humanoid, and all the other qualities of orcs and mobs to boot. CR maybe about 5-ish sounds decent. They've got high HP, and some impressive saves, but 2-3 fireballs, and they've bit the dust, and they don't pack that big of a wallop (not much more than two individual orcs, really).

BIG orc hordes can thus be made of multiple orc mobs put alongside each other.

Wasn't there something similiar in Minions by Bastion press?

Well, I don't know enough about the swarms to compare the rules yet. (I haven't even read through the entries on them, yet.) But the base idea is very good and very useful. Running masses of enemies is annoying and boring, so this is a great concept.

Kamikaze Midget said:

Where'd you get +15 attack from? Why the +20 HD? Just pure 'beefing'? Can't they have less HD (since they're not getting killed to a man, usually....)?

Click to expand...

Just played it by ear. The numbers probably need tweaking.

So, extrapolating from the swarm rules:
Mobs are closely-packed, disorganized creatures that move an attack as a single unit. They have a single HD, hp, Init, speed, and AC, and saves.
We'll say for each 10-ft. space a mob has about 75 people (extraploating from the 300 Tinies in the same space).

Click to expand...

Good heavens. That's not a mob, that's a flesh golem.

The maximum density you could get for size S or M creatures on a battlemap under the normal rules is 1/25 creatures/sq ft. What you've got there is 75/100, which is about 19 times that.

There's so many, because they're crawling all over each other, and whatever they're hitting.

Click to expand...

Huh? We're not talking about ants here. This is just a bunch of regular guys, who are treated as one unit for convenience.

Couldn't you just use Cry Havoc mass combat rules? It works the same way...

Nightfall said:

Couldn't you just use Cry Havoc mass combat rules? It works the same way...

Click to expand...

You assume that he owns or would want to own that book, which is not a safe assumption.

I was going to comment on Kamikaze's Midgit's density numbers. That's insane! Even if this was a swarm -- which it isn't -- you'd have to be piling up bodies like cordwood to get that sort of density. If you laid the bodies out flat, and piled them up on top of each other, you'd end up with around 10 layers! No. Just no.

I'm going to tinker with numbers, but I definitely will be using this template.

Well yeah he could just...you know...thing with letter K...file sharing. That thingie! Just saying!

I may end up using the mob template in my campaign; I decided that the kobold wizard (who was defeated at the abandoned lizardfolk temple) is going to get acquainted with the war magic from a recent issue of Dragon and march on the mercenary fort. Then I looked at the numbers. I'm supposed to place tokens and roll attacks for 125 fiendish wolves? No thanks, I'll just make a few mobs of 40 each.

I've actually got Cry Havoc. I've also looked at a few other mass combat rules, including those in the Minis HB.

In general though, these rules usually abstract the game up another level, which is something I'd rather not do (or as little as possible). For instance, Cry Havoc uses a different time scale (1 round = 1 minute ) and map scale (1 square = 50 ft). There are also other complications, but they all boil down to how these rules are meant to allow large-scale fights between armies. That's something I'm not that interested in; if there is a major battle going on, I'd probably just handwave anything that doesn't directly involve the PCs. I just want a simple, convenient way of representing big groups of mooks, without the logistics getting out of hand.