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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6994918" data-attributes="member: 6787650">I'm not sure what it would mean to claim that a shambling mob of a thousand zombies isn't "viable." I haven't advanced any such generalized claim. They'd be fun in certain situations, and potentially boring in others. Even in the boring situation I wouldn't necessarily refrain from using them--I'd just skip over the rest of the encounter if it ever becomes clear that the PCs have "solved" it with a viable strategy. If you can kill ten zombies in twenty seconds without spending any limited resources (including limited space)--if the situation at the end of twenty seconds is essentially the same as the beginning except that ten zombies are dead--then I'm willing to extrapolate that result over thirty minutes and say that you can take down a thousand zombies. I may or may not ask you to roll dice as part of that resolution, depending upon what your strategy is and whether the zombies get to attack. E.g. if they made 20 attacks on you during that time, but it only ate up your Monk of Long Death's temp HP, I might believe that you just got lucky and that a thousand zombies could still potentially kill you. After doing a bit of math in my head, I might offer, "You can kill all the rest of the zombies without rolling at the cost of losing 1d6 x 15 real HP, or you can play out this combat in detail."I'm actually fine with berserk melee mobs occasionally. It's awesome when players get to mow down hordes of enemies and feel awesome. I've stated multiple times that I don't see anything wrong with the encounter. I just think it's wrong to draw conclusions about strong, tactical mobs based on the behavior of weak, berserk melee mobs. I object to the gnoll example as a form of experimental proof, not as an encounter. A thousand zombies mindlessly attacking an orphanage from its basement could be a really cool and fun encounter, especially if there are reasons why the kids can't flee the orphanage until daylight. (E.g. vampires outside.)You're reading my take on gnolls correctly though: gnolls are smart enough that I would be put out if someone expected me to play them like mindlessly attacking zombies.</blockquote>

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