Hordes

[Burrahobbit]

The 3.5e DM's guide admits that the system does not deal well with encounters featuring more than 12 opponents. But I'm working on an adventure where the PCs have at least the potential to stand against a horde of onrushing gibberlings (using my own conversion, since I don't own Monsters of Faerun - was thinking basically CR 1/3 to 1 goblin or orc reskins with an ability to cause the shaken condition on a failed Fort save).

Any thoughts on how best to do this? First in terms of raw numbers/mechanics (is it workable or worthwhile to throw, say, 20-25 CR 1 creatures against a 7th level party? Will the low ability of these creatures to penetrate defenses make the fight dull? Should the numbers be greater assuming big area effect spells from the party wizard decimating the ranks regularly? At what point do the scales tip to make the encounter truly dangerous but not impossibly deadly?).

And second in terms of getting the *feel* of being mobbed by a horde of not-especially mighty creatures that are absolutely terrifying in quantity.

One thought I had was having the PCs actually only have to *fight* a (relatively) small number - the aforementioned 20-25 - before the rest of the horde either flees or just decides its not worth the effort and crash on into the night. So there's still the terror factor of seeing hundreds and hundreds of slavering beasts charging at you, but without the tedium of carrying out a fight against each one.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

(If this fits better in the 3e rules forum, apologies!)

 

[Doug McCrae]

Any thoughts on how best to do this?

Make them a swarm or swarms? It saves rolling lots of d20s.

I think you would need more than 20-25 CR1 monsters to challenge a level 7 party, more like 100s, and they would have to attack in waves, Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun style.

 

[roguerouge]

DMGII has a section on mobs that treats them like swarms. It's a little abstract for my taste, but it might work for you. Problem areas include how a swarm of 1st level warriors WILL survive a fireball (but, then, you could say the same about swarms of rats and burning hands) and you have to forbid them from grappling (as it's their win-button and unfun.)

 

[blargney the second]

Stacking buffs are where it's at if you want to use scads of low-level monsters to threaten high-level PCs. Don't worry about their defenses - just crank up their attack and damage values, and away you go. Even 7th level PCs have to worry about dozens of CR 1/2 enemies that are attacking at +12 for 1d8+15.

 

[S'mon]

AD&D used to handle battles with dozens or hundreds of foes easily. I think the secret is not to use the battlemat, at least not round-by-round. It's the square-counting that takes forever.

My suggestion would be to use 1 minute combat rounds; everyone gets to act 10 times each round, including the horde. So a surrounded PC would be attacked 80 times. Spellcasters will soon run out of spells. Warriors will be taking significant damage - eg 80 attacks at 20 to hit would be 4 hits per round. Maybe take average # hits and just roll for crits.

A 7th level PC group should be able to kill hundreds of 1 hd creatures, but unless they're all flying safely above them they will take a lot of damage.

 

[roguerouge]

Another approach is to simply calculate the odds the PC will get hit. So if they get hit from these mooks 5 percent of the time and thus criticalled .25 percent of the time, you know that for every 20 arrows, one will hit and for every 400 arrows shot, one will critical. Just decide when that critical arrow would be dramatically appropriate.

 

[EP]

I'd have to dig it up but I had something for d20 hordes and it worked out quite well a couple of times (except the first time when the players polymorphed into creatures that pretty much had immunity to their attacks). It's been a while since I used it, but it does treat the horde as a swarm with a few extra benefits.

- when the horde is reduced to 0 hit points, it is split into smaller groups to maintain combat
- immunity or strong resistance to most melee and ranged attacks, but vulnerable to area attacks

The basic idea for this horde concept is that the horde is a giant mass of mindless creatures. Reducing hit points of the horde breaks up the group, but does not destroy it altogether. Zombies are pretty much what it's designed for, but I'll dig it up and post it.

 

[Garnfellow]

The swarm approach is definitely the way to go, particularly with gibberlings. Somewhere I think I rewrote them accordingly. I'll have to check the files . . .

 

[Burrahobbit]

Thanks, all, for some really good ideas. I like using the concept of a handful of swarms to simulate the horde. I'll let you know how it goes if we get our game together this weekend.

 

[EP]

Damn, THAT's what I forgot to do last night. Mental note rewritten.