D&D 4E "Mook" rules for 4E monsters?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This REALY sounds exactly the same as 1/4, 1/2, and 1 CR to me. Almost like it's throwing a different name on somthing and calling it "new"

Even if you look at it from higher level 1 cr 4 guy is very close to 1/4 cr to an 8th level character.
I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems just as easy now as their promicing it will be in the future.

I think we had some discussion about the concepts in other threads, but to reiterate some points:

Bonus to attacks and saves increase very fast with level and CR in 3rd edition. If you want a normally challenging encounter with 8 mooks, they would need to be 6 CRs below that of the characters. But with that difference, they have little chance to save against the PCs abilities(which becomes particularly nasty with spells that affect multiple opponents), and they have a very low chance of hitting a PC. The mook spells will be ineffective (often saved against and possible dealing little damage). Such a combat might work occasionally (tho let the PCs show off), but it's not exciting in the long run, since the PCs simply aren't hurt.

In the reverse situation, in "boss" encounters, the boss usually suffers from having to few actions, and any attack that limits or reduces his actions are immensely effective.
The PCs, on the other hand, can rarely use their own abilities effectively, as their attack bonus is comparatively low to the monsters AC, and their spell save Dcs are low compared to the enemies saving throws.

The design goal in 4th edition seems to be to compensate on both ends:
monsters have a level which probably indicates things like attacks and defenses, but depending wether the monster is a minion, a regular monster, an elite monster or a boss monster, it will have different (reactive) attack options, damage and hitpoints.

A secondary goal here is probably also to stabilize the complexity of the encounter. (Imagine a party of 15th level characters engaging 4 9th level Clerics and 4 9th level Wizards, compared to them engaging a single CR 15 Outsider or Dragon). A "boss" monster will have a lot of complex abilities, but it's not more than an XP-equivalent mook encounter.

I think there was also a few posts regarding to "the sweet spot", indicating that usually, a success rate of ~70% feels satisfying for players (regardless of game type). A lot More, it feels to easy, a lot less, it is too difficult. That was approximately the region of the levels associated with the "sweet spot". Minions, Regular, Elite and Boss monsters of equal level but different XP value are probably their method to get to these rates.

 

[erf_beto]

I rarely use mooks to challenge the party so much as "give the party a few minutes of being bad-asses". I'd say blasting a dozen screaming swordsmen into ash qualifies.

The way I see it: Johnny Mo, Gogo Yubari and O-Ren Ishii are the challenges---but first, you must deal with the Crazy 88s.

I agree. But there are times when numbers matter, like in the feel of the Zombie article, or when you want an army of lvl 1 orc warriors to be threatening. I suppose mooks and minions can be cleared easily but now they'll will actually be able to hurt high level parties.

If I remember correctly, there's a 'mob' template for 3E somewhere (DMG2?). I cant really remember how it works though, but maybe that's a sign of 'things to come'. I guess you can easily get past a level 1 comonner, but a mob of them is like CR6... until you damage 'it' long enough to drop a few men and the CR drops accordingly, lowering atack bonus and melee damage...

 

[Kraydak]

You know, I was playing in a 1ed game recently. 8thish level party vs horde of hill giant/troll types. It was a slaughter. There wasn't any real risk on our part. That comment about 3rd lvl orcs being dangerous against 8th lvl pcs in 1ed but not in 3rd is ridiculous. The orcs *might* be hitting more in 1st (the reverse is more likely though, they didn't get +3 to hit from strength), but they are only doing d6 instead of 2d4+4.

I'm filing this under the must talk down 3ed, even if it is stretching the facts listing... which I'm seeing way too much of.

 

[Gundark]

Well I was assuming this sort of thing (mooks) since there was talk of elite monsters such as the beholder

 

[Kraydak]

I agree. But there are times when numbers matter, like in the feel of the Zombie article, or when you want an army of lvl 1 orc warriors to be threatening. I suppose mooks and minions can be cleared easily but now they'll will actually be able to hurt high level parties.

If I remember correctly, there's a 'mob' template for 3E somewhere (DMG2?). I cant really remember how it works though, but maybe that's a sign of 'things to come'. I guess you can easily get past a level 1 comonner, but a mob of them is like CR6... until you damage 'it' long enough to drop a few men and the CR drops accordingly, lowering atack bonus and melee damage...

The DMG2 mob template is a glorious example of horrific game design. (It makes geriatric naked halfling commoners the equivalent of well geared, trained warriors and it completely negates anti-mook fighting feats, such as cleave and whirlwind attack. Sucks to be the fighter who trained to fight against mobs...)

 

[erf_beto]

The DMG2 mob template is a glorious example of horrific game design. (It makes geriatric naked halfling commoners the equivalent of well geared, trained warriors and it completely negates anti-mook fighting feats, such as cleave and whirlwind attack. Sucks to be the fighter who trained to fight against mobs...)

Wich reminds me that I actually need to READ the small print every now and then, instead of just getting 'the feel' of it...
The idea behind it is good, IMO. Let's just hope 4E handles it better.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

In 7th Sea, "mooks" are called Brute Squads and work like this.

• They have no hit points (or dramatic wounds if your in the 7th Sea world), one hit and that guy is done.
• They come in packs, typically between 4-6.
• They have a threat rating which determines how dangerous they are
• When they attack, they all attack together making only one attack for the group
• Their attack is based on their threat rating and number still standing (knocking out brutes reduces the group's combat effectiveness).
• If they hit the Hero, they deal damage based on their weapon type (this can increase depending on how "good" they hit their target)
• They can support villains and henchmen, adding their combat abilities to the person they are supporting

Brute Squads are the "common chaff" heroes wade through in cinematic books, movies, and games (oh here come 20 guards to stop us, lets mow them down). Brute Squads are your disposable bad guys in 7th Sea; heroes go to a bad part of town, show them its rough with some brutes, a lull in the story, here comes some brutes to spice things up and get things going again, etc. They make great crews for ships, basic soldiers in an army, or random thugs of the inquisition.

The next level up from a brute squad is the Henchman. They are much tougher (about 1/2 the strength of a Hero - Dramatic wounds equal to their resolve). From there you get to the Villain level (full or greater strength then a Hero, possibly better then the entire group of Heroes - Dramatic wounds 2x their resolve).

If you'll recall, in 2nd Edition there was the concept of the heroic fray. They specifically cite the Fellowship's battle in the Mines of Moria as an example of it. It provided a set of rules for running a battle like this (but I can never recall using it). These rules provided a way to run the PCs against a much larger and significantly less skilled group/small army (similar in style to the brute squad mechanic).

If I'm running a cinematic game, Brute Squads are brilliant. They allow the heroes a chance to do amazing things (defeat the entire town guard) and show off how good they are (until the Villain shows up).

In gritty games, I dislike the concept of the Brute Squad. They spoil the mood by providing opponents who are no match for the heroes. In a gritty game, I want fights to be tough, death to mean something, and risk involved for all parties.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Well that's pretty much the objective of mooks right? Making the wizard feel good about killing tons of enemies with one attack when, earlier in his career, it would have taken a much greater toll on him

Depends on what your actual goal is. For my games, the Mook type monsters are not meant to win, but they are meant to keep the party busy and to keep the players from being careless. They provide all sorts of uses.

1) They can keep a low AC spell caster neutralized with ranged weapons and readied actions.
2) They minimize the players damage output due to Overkill.
3) They provide occasional damage making them worth while against Low Ac or Low HD.
4) They provide Aid Another bonuses to the primary threats
5) They buy time for the primary opponents to use their abilities.

Points 1 and 3 are very much worth mentioning. Even mook level archers are ususally enough to cause serious problems for Sorcerers and Wizards. They can also hit semi-reliably against light armour opponents. This makes them VERY cost effective against many PC's. If the AC sucks, they can nickle and dime the target to death. And if the target has a good AC but a low HD, than even the occasional 1d8 damage can cause serious problems.

Point 2 is also handy. A Fireball is a great spell for clearing mooks. Unless your player makes a habit of rolling 6d6 and having it total up to 8 damage, it will wipe your standard mooks out. It is also pretty solid for doing damage to your primary opponents, 6d6 averages out to 21 or 10 damage on a save. If you let your wizard drop that on your opponent, it will just hasten your demise. But if he has to drop it on a bunch of Orcs, he just wasted a pretty heavy spell. The same applies to those high damage outputs of your fighters. 14 damage ona single hit is not a big deal if the target only had 6 HP, but if your target had 40 hp, he is well on his way to dead.

Point 5 is the most important though. As a DM, when I go to the trouble of putting together a non mook, I want to be able to show off how badass it is. For pure melee types, all you need to do is wade in, roll the attack die, and inform your plate armoured tank that you just scored a hit on an 8. But if your using a caster type, your not going to pull of that cool trick if you eat a bunch of damage in the opening round. And I really do not want to have to give every spell caster I use some form of Regeneration or a mid 20's AC before any buffs.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[jensun]

I'm not quite sure what info you want – could you elucidate?

The concept of mook rules generally means being able to throw a lot of weak opposition against the PC's whose main purpose is to serve as a way for the PC's to shine. This varies from systems where they have very little health to ones where they are literally nothing more than scenery to be stunted around.

How did you turn your drow encounter into one which utilised mook rules?

Was it simply a case of throwing a bunch of monsters of very low CR at the PC's? If so that isnt really something I would class as "mook". One of the key things about mooks is that they shouldnt take very long to adjudicate their actions. Having 20+ different drow all having to take individual actions is time consuming and very unmooky (is that even a word, should it be unmookish?).

 

[Plane Sailing]

If you're like me and you played first edition, you can have like the fourth level party get ambushed by 20 orcs and it's gonna work - oh, maybe not 20, but you know the eigth level party fighting 20 third level orcs will still be dangerous because the orcs' attack bonus is not so low that you just can't hit the PCs' ACs without 20's. Which is nice. You can get that sort of epic battle feeling going then, and that's in addition to using rules we have for minion monsters which lets you do that to an even greater degree.

It seems to me as if this podcast quote is actually talking about the opposite of Mook rules as most people understand them. As described by many excellent posts in this thread, mooks are foes that go down quickly - wheat before the scythe if you like.

This podcast quote seems to be saying the opposite, in the sense that large numbers of low level foes can still be a viable threat to higher level parties (in the way that mere mooks can't).

Minions sounds like a way of providing a large number of relatively weaker threats which still count.

Do you see what I mean?