D&D 5E Is there some kind of hoard rules somewhere?

[keynup]

Just a random idea that popped into my head.

The concept of the PC's have to defend an area against a theoretically infinite # of enemy. Armies of orcs or zombies.

Sort of like a swarm. Any hit on an individual enemy would drop them, with a constant flow of new enemies. You'd track total hp dealt to decide when the enemy stops.

X# enemies show every Y# rounds.
Maybe a boss type shows after enough hp damage dealt.

 

[Shiroiken]

There are two ways you can handle this. Officially in the DMG there is a rule about using many monsters with the same attack bonus to determine how many automatically hit without rolling any dice. My suggestion would be to create a swarm of medium size creatures, which would probably be huge or even larger in size. Have it attack all creatures in its area for twice the damage of the normal creature, and half that once the swarm is at half HP.

 

[Leatherhead]

That's a horde btw. Hoard rules would be for treasure.

Anyway, there are Morale rules in the DMG and the Mass Combat rules from UA.

Also you might be able to modify the rules for a Complex Trap in XGtE.

 

[dave2008]

Just a random idea that popped into my head.

The concept of the PC's have to defend an area against a theoretically infinite # of enemy. Armies of orcs or zombies.

Sort of like a swarm. Any hit on an individual enemy would drop them, with a constant flow of new enemies. You'd track total hp dealt to decide when the enemy stops.

X# enemies show every Y# rounds.
Maybe a boss type shows after enough hp damage dealt.

I have used swarms for hordes before. You can see examples of how I did it in the Demons and Devils of my hardcore monster manual. There is a vargouille swarm, an imp swarm, and lemure horde. There is also the WotC UA Mass Combat rules which could be used. Finally, there is also the fan made "Book of Hordes" which I think is exactly what your looking as it has rules for making hordes and includes stats for human mobs, zombie hordes, skeleton hordes, orc hordes, and hobgoblin hordes.

 

[Inchoroi]

I have used swarms for hordes before. You can see examples of how I did it in the Demons and Devils of my hardcore monster manual. There is a vargouille swarm, an imp swarm, and lemure horde. There is also the WotC UA Mass Combat rules which could be used. Finally, there is also the fan made "Book of Hordes" which I think is exactly what your looking as it has rules for making hordes and includes stats for human mobs, zombie hordes, skeleton hordes, orc hordes, and hobgoblin hordes.

Uh, so, I'll be stealing your Horde rules for my pirate campaign. It didn't even occur to me to use legendary actions for mobs...

EDIT: Actually, I might be stealing a lot of monsters from this.

 

[dave2008]

Uh, so, I'll be stealing your Horde rules for my pirate campaign. It didn't even occur to me to use legendary actions for mobs...

Yep, that was one on my better ideas and one thing I like better than the other horde rules I linked too. It just makes the mob a bit more dynamic.

 

[Inchoroi]

Yep, that was one on my better ideas and one thing I like better than the other horde rules I linked too. It just makes the mob a bit more dynamic.

How do you determine the mob's HP?

 

[dave2008]

How do you determine the mob's HP?

What I did was determine how many individual monsters made up the horde. That number then becomes the basis for the different stages of HP and actions in the "Swarm" trait. I then use standard monster rules to develop a HP close to the total number of creatures in the swarm. So if you look at the Lemure Swarm, you can think of it as 16 lemures which would have 208 HP. The swarm has 210 HP which is close enough for me.

Now what could be an issue is that I give them a resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, which effectively doubles the swarms hit points. This was to represent that it is not just a solid mass of enemies, but there is some space for them to maneuver. However, if that seems like to much, just drop the resistance.

 

[Eltab]

As a matter of fact, the Draconomicons (for 3e and 4e) do have hoard rules: how much money is the dragon sleeping on, what stuff has it collected, interesting and unique tidbits to 'personalize' each dragon. In case you ever need that, too.

 

[Bohandas]

D&D 3.5e has rules for mobs of small or medium creatures in Cityscape and Dungeon Master's Guide 2