How does the Mob template work in 3.5?

[Jeff Wilder]

First off, one 5d6 fireball should utterly decimate a mob of commoners (20' space) as it disables each individual in the mob automatically.

Out of curiosity, do you have this same problem with, say, burning hands and a swarm of spiders? If so, okay. If not, why do you think that is?

 

[ValhallaGH]

Any enterprising player hearing that is immediately going to hire 20' space worth of commoners for his next dungeon crawl. And no matter what happens to them, he'll get 70 percent of them back.

Dude, real world military units are considered destroyed if they take 30% casualties. The unit is so badly under strength that it's no longer mission capable and must be reinforced and refitted.
15-20% is considered neutralized, no longer a tactical consideration due to loss of personnel and the shock of those losses.
5-10% is considered suppressed, or out of action for the moment, though they can be a concern in an hour or so.

There are scores of occasions throughout history where a unit that was destroyed, neutralized, or suppressed got the job done anyway. The reason we remember and record these deeds is because they are a remarkable achievement, displaying some of the rarest and most valued traits in military history. That's the same reason those units almost always received unit citations for gallantry after those events.
Similarly, there are many recordings of a unit being reduced to 10% or less of it's original strength. Again, we record these events because they are so unusual. Those kinds of losses (90% or more) are such an aberration from the norm that they are automatically remembered.

Things to consider when trying to build your super-mobs.

 

[roguerouge]

Dude, real world military units are considered destroyed if they take 30% casualties. The unit is so badly under strength that it's no longer mission capable and must be reinforced and refitted.
15-20% is considered neutralized, no longer a tactical consideration due to loss of personnel and the shock of those losses.
5-10% is considered suppressed, or out of action for the moment, though they can be a concern in an hour or so.

...

Things to consider when trying to build your super-mobs.

True enough. Blame the hit point system. The rules say that once the mob hits 0 HP, the mob disperses with 30 percent dead, 30 percent unconscious and the rest dispersed. Until that point, they're just like PCs, fighting without problems as long as they have 1 HP.

Probably mobs should have been given 1/4 of the hit points to reflect that reality or simply poor morale. The demonstration that you CAN cast fireball or slice them to ribbons should be enough to overawe them.

 

[roguerouge]

Out of curiosity, do you have this same problem with, say, burning hands and a swarm of spiders? If so, okay. If not, why do you think that is?

That's a good question. No, I don't.

Thinking about it, mobs annoy the dramatist in me and they strike me as unfair. Squishing bugs/rats/bats is sufficiently non-heroic that I can just let the board game player in me say that these are the rules we play with. Plus, my inner dramatist can imagine the swarm retreating from what's an instantaneous effect, losing some of its number, but reforming in the square. Or the wizard didn't get them all. And so forth. Not to mention that it usually only takes one or two of those to take out a spider swarm. Genre-wise, I lump them into horror, where "it just keeps coming" is part of the terror.

But with mobs... they're so dramatic that it seems like SUCH a missed opportunity when the DMGII let clunky, imbalanced grapple rules mess them up. Bug swarms don't use %&&*% grapple, which takes so much time and looking things up in books. So that annoys the dramatist in me. The gamist in me feels like the DM's letting me win when the monster uses hugely suboptimal tactics. It's like killing an evil necromancer who only uses magic missile rather than his fifth level spells. So neither part of me is satisfied with them.

And then there's the fairness issue. By the time a party is facing a mob, they're at the level where the fighter inherently lags behind the glory hogs (CoDzilla and wizards). I find it unfair to players of fighters that take feats specifically to deal with large numbers of weak creatures if they get them ruled out of existence simply because the DM calls them by a different name. As a player, I'd want to know before going down those feat paths that the DM was going to make them useless just when they'd be most useful and dramatic and interesting.

The idea of a monster that takes something ordinary and makes it both a tactical challenge and a dramatic moment and does it without rolling dozens of d20s is SUCH a great idea. But I want it to be fair to the players. I want it play as fast and dramatic as possible. And I want to make the suspension of disbelief as light as possible.

When I use mobs as a DM, and I will, I'm going to have fighters with Cleave do double damage. Those with Great Cleave and Whirlwind attack might get triple and quadruple damage respectively, but have to move into the swarm to get them. I won't allow the mob to grapple, but perhaps replace it with a Fort save or dazed for one round (modeled on the distraction ability of swarms). And I'll just live with the suspension of disbelief on spells affecting mobs.

 

[RangerWickett]

So taking a bunch of ideas into consideration, I came up with these three units. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for all the help.

 

[roguerouge]

"Attacks that normally affect multiple foes affect a unit differently. Area attacks deal half damage in general, but they deal that amount of damage once for every 5-ft. space of the unit that is caught in the area. Apply energy resistance to the initial damage before multiplying. For instance, if a fireball (10d6 damage normally) was centered on the unit, it would take half damage, multiplied by 9 for having all its squares caught in the blast."

So that fireball now does 157.5 fire damage on average. What do people think of that? It comes close to taking out that Ragesian company.

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, seeing as I based the stats on some units that showed up earlier in the War of the Burning Sky campaign -- they were 4th level fighters -- I think it makes sense that a fireball could the unit out the same way it would take out 20 individual soldiers. Though they do have a higher Reflex save as a unit.

They're definitely vulnerable to area attacks, maybe so vulnerable that their CR is too high. But for the encounters in which I'm using them, the party will be facing several at once. I mean, it's for the 20th-level adventure from the series.

 

[RangerWickett]

One thing I need to do, though, is give them spot and listen to represent 40 guys looking around for invisible high-level enemies.

 

[roguerouge]

It's for 20th level characters? Wow. That wizard will be able to take out... 28 units in 14 rounds with Quicken spell for... 560 deaths. In under a minute and a half.*

*Using just fireballs for his third level slots and above and without counting ability scores or specialization. Obviously, larger area spells increase the carnage by quite a bit.

 

[Stalker0]

Generally, people house rule extra damage for melee folk with cleave, great cleave, and whirlwind attack, for precisely the reason you observe.

Take your standard mob:

1) You do an extra 25% more damage to a mob if you have cleave, 100% more if you have great cleave.
2) Area effect do 50% extra damage to mobs.
3) DR is tripled against the attacks of mobs.

I use those rules in my game, and found mobs a pretty decent abstraction.