D&D 5E Stampede

[pogre]

What you never seen any documentary, where the animals dash out the forest fire and the firemen duck out of the way? So stampede is not the officially correct American English word. Do you have one?

I think stampede is appropriate. The description of woodland animals dashing ahead of Jackson's men at the Battle of Chancellorsville in the American Civil War was described in the official war diaries of at least two units as a stampede of deer and other creatures.

As for the original post, I would keep it fairly simple group of dexterity checks with minor damage. What can be sometimes unnerving is to see major predators fleeing along side multitudes of prey animals. This gives the sense something really scary is coming!

 

[Nevvur]

I think this is a connotation vs. denotation issue. The dictionary definition (as seen at http://www.dictionary.com/browse/stampede?s=t) does not specify "open spaces", but does mention "frightened animals" (like those escaping the fire in [MENTION=277]jasper[/MENTION]'s post), but the connotation (largely from to Western and Tarzan movies) is of large animals on an open plane. This is useful since the DM should have to decide what kind (or at least how large) of animals are stampeding. If it is a bunch of big animals, I would treat it as if two animals attacked each PC every round, if it is a bunch of little animals, one or two swarms should do it, and if it is a mix, maybe one large animal and one swarm per round.

Yeah, my hangup is mostly on the use of the word stampede. It's certainly possible for a herd of panicked deer in the woods to present some danger, but it's not going to be a tide of flesh and hooves like in open terrain. As I imagine it, the biggest danger is trying to predict which way a panicked animal is going to go. These deer aren't being forced to take any particular path, and they're agile enough to evade predators in this terrain. They certainly don't want to collide with anything, whether its a tree or a PC.

If I were running this scene, any PC who has the (common?) sense to get behind a tree gets a free pass. The risk would be minimal for someone standing in the open and remaining still. In this case, have a deer make a DC 5 Dexterity save against each PC in the open. That'll produce a 10% chance of colliding with a PC. Switch it to an attack roll with disadvantage if the PC is actively trying to dodge out of the way (roughly 16% chance to hit against AC 16, I think). Do the rolls for each round the herd is moving through the PCs. Probably lasts 2-5 rounds. Damage is 1d4 on a deer failed save or successful attack.

Yeah, it's a drop in a bucket o' HPs for level 10 PCs. While I think this is an interesting and exciting scenario from a narrative standpoint, it's mechanically trivial, but I'd be fine with that. At this point the party is dealing with threats to the entire land. A herd of panicking mammals shouldn't even be a speed bump. This encounter is cool for telegraphing whatever caused the 'stampede,' though. Hopefully that is more threatening to the party.

 

[Oofta]

When I set up encounters I go through the same basic questions. What's the in-game reason for the encounter? Is it just a logical result of actions by the PCs or others? Does it move the plot forward or add to the story? Will it be fun? Is it logically consistent with the world I envision?

What's the in-game reason for the stampede? What kind of creatures are going to be involved? While people tend to think of forests being where the wild things are, the truth is that prairies or mixed prairie/grassland are where you tend to get large herds, not forests. But it's your world and if it makes sense then go for it.

Next, what's the meta-game purpose of the encounter? Attrition? Flavor text with minimal real danger? A directed stampede as an attack on the PCs? A mix of things with a chance for the PCs to show some ingenuity? As has been mentioned, you can look at expected damage in the DMG, as for the rest I'd kind of play it by ear.

If I were to run a stampede encounter I'd do a lot more than just a single reflex save. Instead of a saving throw what about a reaction/single action? Perhaps a perception to give you advantage to use a skill, if it's high enough to take a full turn instead of just a single action.

After that I'd consider treating it like a combat round with possibility of people being surprised with a swarm/mob trample attack (strength save or knocked prone) with adjustments based on what they attempt.

• Perception 5 or less, the PC is surprised and the swarm "attacks" with advantage.
• Perception 6-10, PC is surprised.
• Perception 11-15, PC has a single action or move half their speed to dive behind a tree or try to grab a low-hanging branch. Nature or investigation check as a reaction to determine where to avoid the herd. Success means they avoid the worst of it getting 3/4 cover and resistance to damage.
• Perception 16+, PC is not surprised at all and gets advantage on the nature or investigation check from above.
• A poor perception (less than 10) means the PC is caught totally off guard and get no bonuses, the "swarm" may even have advantage to hit if the perception check is less than 5.

So basically, if they have a high enough perception check they may avoid the worst of it but then jump behind that fallen tree, it doesn't help that much because it's rotten which they didn't notice when they failed their nature check.

The second (and possibly) third rounds the PCs could help each other, but other thing might happen as well such as trees getting knocked over, etc.

But as I said, it depends on what the purpose of the encounter is. It could just be as simple as box text that you narrate for flavor or have other complex situations as a result of the stampede. It also kind of depends on what is stampeding - a colony of rabbits running by is odd, a herd of elephants could be deadly and knock over trees.

 

[aco175]

Which animals are large enough for a stampede in the woods. I first thought of forest animals fleeing a fire and the fire itself being the threat. You could also have dinosaurs or dragons for level 10 PCs. A little far fetched, but would do the job where deer would not. My PCs would investigate why the herd was fleeing someplace and go explore it. If it is a fire-ok, they avoid it or fly by level 10. A flood would also work, or lava- but that should have been noticed by quakes and such for the last few days, weeks. Truly fantastic could involve a fleet of flying ships attacking each other and the PCs need to avoid the crashing debris as they try to climb on board of an intact ship.