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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6994899" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] - all the proposed "solutions" to the alleged "mob ineffectiveness" involve changing the encounter from what it seems to have been (namely, slavering gnolls charge the PCs with their spears).  [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] and I don't agree on every aspect of the situation (eg without wanting to put words into his mouth, I think he prefers gnolls who are a bit less berserk/slavering and a bit more ready to use tactical cunning including archery), but it was Hemlock who put it pithily not too far upthread - the mistake the gnolls made was to bring knives to a gunfight!So Hemlock also seems to agree, at least in general terms, that massed melee attacks by mobs aren't especially viable, and that the solution for mobs lies elsewhere. (A complexity is that in real life one thing a mob will do is overbear - and Hemlock is a big fan of this in the game too - but in D&D turning a series of melee attacks or a group melee attack into a "knock prone, pin and beat up" scenario requires engaging more complex mechanics and so probably is done by GMs less than verisimiltude would suggest it should. But then a flip-side complexity is that, by potentially stringing out the number of rounds of resolution required, this can make the gnolls spend even more time in the aura.)As I've mentioned several times, the issues for gameplay of aura/zone auto-damage and minions were widely discussed in the 4e era also (and in later products WotC tended to shift from "damage at start of turn" to "damage at end of turn", which helps the minions at least get in their attack if the zone is created on top of them). These issues are an artefact of particular mechanical devices - like the purely mechanical concepts "start/end of turn" - and the solutions to them are mechanical (either formal ones, or informal/ad hoc ones like   [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] suggested upthread).I'd also add - from  [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s point of view, I don't think changing the mobs from melee attackers to ranged attackers is the sort of "solution" he's looking for, given that he's already concerned that the mechanics of the game create too much of an incentive for ranged rather than melee attacking. I take it that this is why he's instead looking at ways of handling the auto-damage (eg raising mob hp) that will reduce its impact on melee tactics.</blockquote>

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