DMG II -- In my hands . . .

[LordVyreth]

That was my first impression, too.

However, some of the powers of a barbarian who has fought alot of battles are pretty ridiculous also. Experience in battle appears to translate into an ability to resist charm spells, fall off of cliffs, and a whole bunch of other things. If you can accept the game logic that says that experience translates into all of these heroic things, then why not accept that a large group of persons with determination can achieve great things collectively?

Oh, I see the value of a mob template, I just think this goes too far in the other direction. Creating a bunch of mobs to represent an army of 1,000s or even 100 of units is reasonable to me. A "mob" of twelve ogres isn't.

According to what theory though? According to DnD without mobs. Mobs certainly don't make sense as simply a "record-keeping" technique for lots of characters - I would see them as an entirely new thing - an advantage to large groups of creatures banding together where, due to morale or whatever, the group of creatures becomes greater than the sum of it's parts.

No, the % is simply based on a casualty rate. A high level fighter with four attacks will almost certainly kill a commoner per swing, barring 1s. The system currently makes allowances for removing individuals from the mob via spells and similar abilities, but unless it has been changed from the Dungeon variant, simple physical attacks on a mob never kill anyone.

Can you attack individuals within a mob? In this post some mention was made of killing individuals being equivalent to negative energy levels. And also double damage from area spells?

Again, my comments are based on the Dungeon version, since it sounds like this part is different. The original version made no allowance for Cleave or Whirlwind Attac, and it only used the negative level penalties when using spells and effects that direction targetting individual. So a Dominate Person or Slay Living spell would give it a neg level, though good luck doing now that the 1 HD commoners have the saves of 30 HD creatures. Which reminds me of another thing that annoys me about the mob. Besides nerfing the offensive actions mentioned earlier, it largely makes simple diplomatic and misdirective solutions impossible. Calming or distracting angry mobs is a classic use for spells like Mass Charm Person, illusionary magic, and the bard's fascinate ability, but the mob not only has a high Will save than a typical commoner, it has a higher save than some 20th level wizards! It would be nearly impossible to use such methods. As to Area effect attacks, I believe it does 50% more damage. Considering damage is going from "they're 1 HD creatures in a tightly-packed fireball formation, they're all dead," to not actually killing anybody unless it manages to disperse the mob, that's a big loss of power!

Taking a look at the "mass combat" thread on this board, there's some reasonable arguments that low-level mooks are such a joke that they wouldn't even factor into wars in DnD. Calling it "chaos" might be overstating it somewhat - in fact, your post sounds strangely reasonable to me that there would be an effective use for followers. Keep in mind that normal supply and deployment logic would have to be considered before you marched 500 followers into a dungeon. And IMO there were plenty of reasons to want 500 people in the front rank to set off traps - before there was Mob template If you didn't have to deal with this issue before as a DM, I'm not sure why anything would change now.

I think any high level character who would use their followers as trap bait won't have followers for very long! Even ignoring the traps, in a non-mob scenario, putting your followers at a point position would mean they get killed by the hundreds as soon as a gaze attack (yet another thing I think mobs are nearly immune to in this version) breath weapon, or area of effect hits them. With mobs you have the equivalent of multiple 300 hp monsters that can get through nearly everything without anybody dying.

Now, because I want to offer something more constructive than mere criticism, here's how I would generall handle the mob template.

Medium mobs will have the same number of hd but require about 3x as many units. So a 30 HD mob would have 100-150 members.
Mobs would have a significant morale bonus to some abilities and to saves, but will calculate the base save values as if they were still only 1 HD creature.
Any time a mob takes significant damage (say 15 or 30 hp,) it takes a negative level just like a member of the mob was removed by magical effect. It'll be similar to the way a hydra works.
A Great Cleave or Whirlwind Attack feat will let the character use multiple actions based on how many spaces they threaten. So a barbarian standing on the side of a mob will likely have three squares of the enemy threatened, letting him/her Great Cleave twice or Whirlwind Attack three targets. A fighter with a reach weapon like a spiked chain and standing in the middle of a mob will have vastly more targets in exchange for the greater risk of being in the mob and taking damage from it.
Large sized mobs could work the same way as medium ones (so 50 ogres instead of 12,) or it could require the same number of members but take up more space and have more HD.

 

[Ozmar]

I just like the "medieval Voltron" imagery. Adventurers will learn to fear the peasants when they misbehave! "People of Hommlet, unite!"

But I wonder how many of us here are talking about this mob thing without actually reading the rules? I don't have a copy of DMG2 yet, so I must reserve judgment. It sounds like something I'll definitely have to include in my next game (if only to hear my player's cry).

Later!
Ozmar the Mob Mentality

 

[Vargo]

Why do I keep thinking of Sanjuro here?

Going WAAAAAY off topic here, this would actually be a better example of superior tactics. If I remember the scene in question, Sanjuro never actually fought more than 2-3 warriors at the same time.

 

[Psion]

Simplicity, I'm with you for the most part. Basically, the mob rule IS a simplification, with perhaps some additional implications. But:

And how exactly are the fists and feet of 30 peasants kicking a demon from all around going to do less damage than a single longsword? The demon SHOULD be taking damage unless you're stuck in a mindset of "each of those punches are a single attack!"

I find the characterization "stuck in the mindset" a little hostile. It's an inconsistency between the rules and should be recognized, and expecting consistency in the rules in generally considered a good thing. Whether that inconsistency is tolerable or even justifiable remains a question to be answered, but waving it off as just a case of the person recongizing the inconsistency and being concerned about it as hidebound isn't the right way to go about it, IMO.

 

[Simplicity]

I find the characterization "stuck in the mindset" a little hostile. It's an inconsistency between the rules and should be recognized, and expecting consistency in the rules in generally considered a good thing. Whether that inconsistency is tolerable or even justifiable remains a question to be answered, but waving it off as just a case of the person recongizing the inconsistency and being concerned about it as hidebound isn't the right way to go about it, IMO.

I really don't mean to come off as hostile on this one. Sorry if it is sounding that way... My apologies to LordVyreth if he interpreted it as such.

I, personally, don't see a consistency problem here. A single "attack" has never in D&D been interpreted as a single swing of the sword, but rather a series of feints, thrusts, jabs, etc.
So the concept of DR applying to a single "contact"... Is just silly to me. It's an abstraction. My interpretation of the previous poster's comments was that he was taking these abstractions as inviolate laws of how the D&D universe worked. And I don't think that's valid.

In a totally non-hostile way.

 

[gizmo33]

A high level fighter with four attacks will almost certainly kill a commoner per swing, barring 1s. The system currently makes allowances for removing individuals from the mob via spells and similar abilities, but unless it has been changed from the Dungeon variant, simple physical attacks on a mob never kill anyone.

I haven't actually seen the rules for the mob - just what's been posted here (and I've seen the horde template in the WLD book).

I haven't decided if I'm going to use them or not, and I'm not defending them completely as much as I am just saying that you're reasoning against them ignores the simple premise that a mob of commoners does not equal many commoners, it's really something different. The way an "experienced" fighter is really something different from an inexperienced one.

You're suggested adjustments to the mob are interesting, and I might wind up using some of them if I ever use mobs. I like the "hydra" variant - it would be nice if mobs scaled nicely ("Charlie, get over here quick, the wizard is about to flame us and we're one man short of a mob!").

 

[Simplicity]

A Great Cleave or Whirlwind Attack feat will let the character use multiple actions based on how many spaces they threaten. So a barbarian standing on the side of a mob will likely have three squares of the enemy threatened, letting him/her Great Cleave twice or Whirlwind Attack three targets. A fighter with a reach weapon like a spiked chain and standing in the middle of a mob will have vastly more targets in exchange for the greater risk of being in the mob and taking damage from it.

I do admit that the failure to account for multi-attacks is a (minor) problem with the current mob template though...

 

[Silveras]

Regarding Mobs...

First...
I think it worth noting that these are not just large groups of creatures. They are large groups of creatures incited to rage and unreasoning violence. In short, they are not just ready to fight; they are desperate to get somewhere to do something, be that to get "anywhere but here" to "survive" or to get "across the courtyard" to "hang the child-killing thief before he gets away". Note that the Mob occupies a square 20 feet on a side; in the case of Medium creatures, that is 48 squeezed into the "fighting space" of 16. The members are not spread out and ready for normal melee; they are pushing and shoving over each other.

The two samples are a Riot (Mob of Humans) and a Stampede (Mob of Light Horses).

Second...
Mobs, as noted, take extra damage from area "spells or effects", and "spells or effects that target specific creatures" cause 2 negative levels per creature neutralized. It seems to me that the effectiveness and value of Cleave, Great Cleave, and Whirlwind Attack is determined by the tactical skill of the one using one of them.

Mobs have a reach of 0; they do not attack in the normal sense, but instead overrun and bull rush and/or trample the target. A warrior who just stands there to take that is not a very good warrior. A warrior who uses tight spaces and his own mobility to keep out of its area can attack with an "effect that targets specific creatures" (Whirlwind Attack) and take out perhaps 2 or 3 in a round. That's 4 or 6 negative levels to the mob.

It makes perfect sense to me that a pushing and shoving crowd of enraged people would not stand still long enough for a warrior to get his Cleave or Great Cleave attacks. The warrior's initial attack would be against the Mob, not its members, and so the Mob does not drop when a member does, and there is no cleave.

As an abstraction, the Mob mechanic fits well for some situations within the rules. Nothing is perfect, but I don't think this one is all that bad.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

So, you didn't buy all 40 copies??

He ain't diaglo.

 

[apesamongus]

Mobs, as noted, take extra damage from area "spells or effects", and "spells or effects that target specific creatures" cause 2 negative levels per creature neutralized. It seems to me that the effectiveness and value of Cleave, Great Cleave, and Whirlwind Attack is determined by the tactical skill of the one using one of them.

Mobs have a reach of 0; they do not attack in the normal sense, but instead overrun and bull rush and/or trample the target. A warrior who just stands there to take that is not a very good warrior. A warrior who uses tight spaces and his own mobility to keep out of its area can attack with an "effect that targets specific creatures" (Whirlwind Attack) and take out perhaps 2 or 3 in a round. That's 4 or 6 negative levels to the mob.

That is obviously not RAW. Feats are not spells. Hell, I don't even like the negative level rule in the first place - it seems odd that a charm person spell can degrade the power of a crowd, but 3 fireballs can't.