OGL "Mob" Type (People Swarm) New! More Dangerous! Manes! Zombies! Elementals! Oh My!

[Someone]

I tried once a cannon fodder template, but this is much better. May I suggest one additional rule: A character with the Cleave feat attacking the Mob in melee deal an extra 50% damage with each hit; if he has the Great Cleave feat, each hit deals x2 damage.

 

[Garnfellow]

AEG's World's Largest Dungeon introduces the Horde subtype, which is basically the same concept. I haven't had a chance to digest it yet, but a side-by-side comparison would be interesting.

Man, I love this idea.

 

[Zephyrus]

So far, very very cool. Might I suggest a couple of things, in no particular order.

Creating a PDF file of the rules you did and posting it on a website somewhere for ease and then putting a link it in the message. Their are many PDF distiller programs out their so dont have to get adobe just to do this. Bluebeam and Leadtools ePrint are just two that come to mind. I suggest this because after reading through the thread it started getting confusing of what was/wasent changing or had already changed based on the discussion. A seperated document would be easy to insure that it was the most up-to-date revision of the idea.

Very cool by the way! I Think its a great idea. Fleshing it out and formating it as a completly detailed template including special options perhaps for handling Mob's of various types of creatures (such as undead) <suddenly shudders at the thought of a Mob of Small Wyrmling Dragons, then feels a little sorry for the momma>. Which brings up another point. How would special attacks like Breath Weapons, Gazes, etc... be handled. A Mob of Medusa or a Mob Half-Dragon's Warriors <shudders more at the idea of either of these>. Half-Dragon's can breath 1/day. Dragons Breath every few rounds, Medusa's petrifying Gaze is generally always active. How would you incorporate these abilities into a Mob and how they function.

I'd be curious to see the Earth Elementals as Small Instead of Medium. That should bring the hit dice and over-all nasty-ness factor down some and maybe make it more CR-able.

Maybe add a rule for mini-mob's (size huge) and mega-mobs (collosal). Also 'spaced' mobs consisting of fewer higher HD creatures. Perhaps making that the norm for creatures with more than 2 HD and an Option for 'Packed' mobs which have as many as 3 creatures per space but have 1 HD or less.

a Ultimate Mob of Gibberlings would be a frightening mob as well. Gibberlings already can stack up to 3 to a space. Would their be a prohibition to creatures like this when using a Mob template (because they already can fit more than one creature to a square)? <shudders at the idea of a Mob of gibberlings brings to mind images from those 'Critters' movies <not to be confused 'gremlin' movies>.

Anyways.. hope I dident overwealm you... great idea! looking forward to seeing more!!

 

[Fieari]

Hey, I'm working on a Shadow Mob right now, since I need one (was going to have Blackdrige do it, and indeed, I submitted the request, but he seems to have quite a backlog... and I'll need it soon) and I noticed something: You don't decrease the AC for size. Something needs to be done about that... if we want the mob to have the same AC as the base creature (understandable) maybe the template could offer an AC bonus of some type. Perhaps just call it a mob bonus?

We need to do this due to calculating Touch (seige weapons?) and Flatfooted AC (ambushes?).

 

[Fieari]

Here's my shadow mob, complete with name. It'll be a session or two more before I bring them out, but what do you guys think? Estimated CR?


Dischordant Voices (Shadow Mob)
Gargantuan Undead (Incorporeal, Mob)

Hit Dice: 90d12 (585 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: Fly 40 ft. (good) (8 squares)
Armor Class: 18 (+2 Dex, +1 deflection, +9 Mob Bonus, -4 size), touch 9, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/--
Attack: Incorporeal touch +6 melee (2d6 Str)
Space/Reach: 20 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Create spawn, Strength damage, Engulf, Swarm
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., incorporeal traits, +10 turn resistance, undead traits, Mob traits, Persistant Mob
Saves: Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +12
Abilities: Str --, Dex 14, Con --,Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 13
Skills: Hide +8*, Listen +7, Search +4, Spot +7
Feats: Alertness, Dodge
Environment: Any
Treasure: None
Alignment: Chaotic evil

In the service of a nearly forgotten Dark God, a Wizard whose name is lost to the ages created a spell that would bind the minds of certain evil spirits together, in order to create an army for the Dark Lord's service. These shadowy forms now act as a hive mind, yet each one remembering his or her own independance, and resenting the servitude. They act as one, yet speak and argue with each other like squabbling children, even as they continue to kill all they encounter, adding the strength of the fallen to their own number.

COMBAT
Strength Damage (Su): The touch of a shadow deals 1d6 points of Strength damage to a living foe. A creature reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow dies. This is a negative energy effect.

Create Spawn (Su): Any humanoid reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow is added to the swarm. Increase Dischodant Voices' HD by 3.

Swarm Traits (Ex): Dischordant Voices takes up 20'x20', but need not be arranged in a square formation. Any configureation consisting of 16 connected 5' squares will do.

Engulf (Ex): Dischordant Voices must engulf a foe in order to attack it. To engulf, any one of Dischordant Voices' squares must overlap the target. This provokes an attack of opportunity. A creature may leave this square as usual on his or her next turn, but doing so also provokes an attack of opportunity. Dischordant Voices may make a melee attack against each creature it has engulfed.

Swarm (Ex): Dischordant Voices can surround an engulfed creature. By surrounding a creature on two sides, Dischordant Voices gains +3 to attack, +1d6 strength damage on hit, and flanking. Each additional side Dischordant Voices surrounds the creature provides an additional +3 to attack and +1d6 damage.


Skills: Shadows have a +2 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks and a +4 racial bonus on Search checks.

*A shadow gains a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks in areas of shadowy illumination. In brightly lit areas, it takes a -4 penalty on Hide checks

 

[Koewn]

I suggest this because after reading through the thread it started getting confusing of what was/wasent changing or had already changed based on the discussion.

Yea I didn't want to post newer stuff lower down, since I decided the earliest draft was icky. I do plan to put it on a website at some point, since it's at a point where I'm comfortable with my concept and it's just adding new ones.

How would special attacks like Breath Weapons, Gazes, etc... be handled. A Mob of Medusa or a Mob Half-Dragon's Warriors...

Hrm.

Let me address Gaze attacks first, as it may be simpler. If you're outside the Mob, I'd lean towards saying it works the same - 50% chance if you 'avert' your eyes (technically, between a single medusa and a mob of medusas, you're just 'averting' from a larger area of your eyesight, and there's no notes in the SRD about a change in percentage for creature size for gaze attacks.)

If you're engulfed by the Mob? Worse. I'd generously say that attempting to merely 'avert' your eyes while you're in an engulfing Mob may only afford you a 20% chance (I'd go as low as 10%) of not having to make a save. You'd be better off to just shut your eyes totally and get out of the mob; additionally, I don't see a way for the mirror trick to work when engulfed by a mob.

How many Medusa can affix their glare upon you at any given time? Lots. However, making 15 saves or whatever isn't fun. I'm going to go out on a limb and say The Fort Save DC for a Mob of Medusa is 30.

How did I get that? I pretended the Medusa was 30 HD, and dumped all the 'ability increases' it would get every 4 HD into Charisma, which the save is based on. That gave me +3, she gets +6 Charisma out of that. However, there's 3 points of the original save not accounted for. (The single Medusa is DC15, has a chr of 15, that's +2 - where is the other 3 from? Anyone know?) If I give the medusa another +3 per 6 HD, just to follow the trend, that's +12, for a total of +15.

Is a DC 30 Fort save high? You betcha. A Mob of Medusa is stupendously rare, exceedingly dangerous, and not very nice at all. When a pile of Medusa affix their stony glare (hah!) on you, you'd better believe you're either dang lucky or stupid tough to not get petrified.

Breath weapons...ok. Whether we go with Red Wyrmlings or Half-Dragon warriors, we're looking at Medium creatures with breath weapons that are 30ft cones. (since cones vary in size, we have to take this on a case by case basis).

I know this is cheating out, but I'm really tempted to say that the DM just needs to step up and keep track of it himself per mob member. If I had to come up with something simple, I'd say:

For creatures limited to one breath use per day:

The mob has a number of 'breath damage rolls' equal to the number of creatures in the mob. A mob of Half-Dragons, for example, has 30 6d8 breath attacks. Each round, any number of targets in range of the mob may be attacked by a Mob Breath Attack until that mob is out of 'breath damage rolls'. Mob members should in general be 'in range' of their targets (determined by the DM - anyone within 5 foot of a 20x20 mob could get hit by a 30ft cone, for example, from any mob member). The Mob may use multiple 'breath damage rolls' on one or multiple targets in any given round. For every 2 'breath damage rolls' the Mob expends on a single target, the Save DC for the breath weapon increases by 1. Each additional breath weapon, if it deals damage die, only deals half the number of die. (of course, some breath isn't damaging, so it's just the save dc increase)

Example: In Round One, A Mob of Half-Dragons breathe fire on a single target. 12 mob creatures contribute. 1 6d8 and 11 3d8 breath weapons are targeted at a creature. Assuming the original Save DC for the breath was 16, the new save DC is 22, with a damage roll of 39d8.

I'm not sure of a simple way to do dragons and the like (unlimited, variable-round delay breath) yet. Again, this is VERY dangerous. And it darn well should be.

I'd be curious to see the Earth Elementals as Small Instead of Medium.

HP cut in half, their attack would be 'Slam +14 Melee 3d6+13', let's say, AC/Saves as the base creature, Grind attack still souble damage. Not a lot of difference other than the HP, but it's only one size category, which doesn't do a lot for elementals.

Maybe add a rule for mini-mob's (size huge) and mega-mobs (collosal).

'Huge' mobs could be done by taking the HD down to 3/4 of the total (modifiying special attacks accordingly) and calling it 15' on a side - same with Colossal - add 50% and call it 30ft on the side. Some things may need to get juggled more than others.

Also 'spaced' mobs consisting of fewer higher HD creatures. Perhaps making that the norm for creatures with more than 2 HD

Well, a 'mob' is space, more than HD. A mob of 20th level halfling fighters has 20 HD. What could be done, however, if you were to make a mob of...Bison, let's say. Make a mob of Large creatures Colossal by default. Animal stampedes can stay pretty tight. I think that'll be my next sample mob.

and an Option for 'Packed' mobs which have as many as 3 creatures per space but have 1 HD or less.

For the rare creature with less that 1 HD that's still Small or larger, yes. (I can't think of any...somebody know?) Once you hit Tiny you're covered under the Swarm guidelines.

<Gibberlings/Critters Movies> Would their be a prohibition to creatures like this when using a Mob template (because they already can fit more than one creature to a square)?

I remember that movie series. They formed into a big ball and ran over people. There'd be no prohibition to using those creatures as a Mob. I don't know where Gibberlings are from or what they're like, but my first instinct would be to up the HD of the mob (if they're 1 HD creatures, I'd double it for Mob purposes) and increase whatever sort of melee damage they do. On top of that, I'd give them extra bonus damage for successfully engulfing and pinning a target, much like the Earth Elementals.


I hadn't expected this thread to get dragged up again, so I hadn't done any work on the theme in a while, but I'll get back to it.

I really really really want someone who has used them to give me a report of how it did - my game's on hiatus for a few months during the holidays, and I'm not foolish enough to turn this into my *own* DM to use

Thanks!

Koewn

 

[Koewn]

You don't decrease the AC for size. Something needs to be done about that... if we want the mob to have the same AC as the base creature (understandable) maybe the template could offer an AC bonus of some type. Perhaps just call it a mob bonus?

We need to do this due to calculating Touch (seige weapons?) and Flatfooted AC (ambushes?).

Ah! Good catch, and an interesting point. Plus, anyone that comes in, looks at a monster write-up, and says, "You know, I think I'd use a catapult on that." is my sort of player.

The reason I moved the size categories the way I did (you'll note Swarms are listed as the size of their component creatures) is that I wanted that super Grapple bonus. While I could cheat and relist everyone as Medium/Small, and make a 'Mob Grapple Bonus' entry, well, let's see how it feels the other way.

Touch AC's are used for touch attacks and rays, maybe some other stuff. I agree that a wizard shooting a ray or slapping a Shocking Grasp into a mob, whether the wizard be engulfed or not, would be a tad easier. Certainly -4 easier (-4 being the Gargantuan AC penalty). Most other touch attacks, the Mob is immune to.

Normal and Flatfooted AC - they're about the same thing, for this situation. Now when I'm envisioning a sword swing against the Mob, I'm assuming that the PC is trying to make contact and hit somebody. That would indicate that we'd treat AC normally in that case.

However, the case can be made that when engulfed, or faced with a 'wall of people', that same fighter could just swing wildly and probably hit something, and chances are it'd be an effective hit - but only against unarmored opponents - one thing AC is trying to simulate is the issue of getting through armor for a hit, and a wild swing is just as likely to glance off 5 guy's breastplates before it makes a solid connect.

If that opinion holds water, the easiest thing to do would be to relist the Mobs as the size of their component creatures, give them a 'Mob Grapple Bonus', and a 'Mob Touch AC Penalty'. Keeping as is and giving a 'Mob AC Bonus' to Normal/Flat ACs is more clunky, I think, since a 'Mob AC Bonus' makes no literal sense - telling someone they grapple better but are more easily touched as a mob does.

Let me know if that makes sense, Fieari, with your thought train on the issue.

Thanks! (oh, at first glance, I like the Dischordant Voices; I'm short on time for a full comment, but quick question - are there stats for the sigular creature once they're dispersed?)

Koewn

 

[ViciousPenguin]

Here's my shadow mob, complete with name. It'll be a session or two more before I bring them out, but what do you guys think? Estimated CR?


Dischordant Voices (Shadow Mob)
<snip>

That's a creepy mob! I see a tpk in your campaign's near future.

The only thing I would recomend is a better name for their 'swarm' special ability, in keeping with Koewn's theme. How does 'Embrace of the Grave' strike you? Otherwise, that's a killer mob!

 

[Fieari]

Bumping this because Dischordant Voices is going to make his debut tonight, and I want this thread ready so I can give a report afterwards...

 

[LostSoul]

That is really, really cool...