Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Mr_Sandman

I like this pre-rolled HT check idea. Before my next game, for each mook, I'm going to pre-roll a line of HT checks until I come up with a couple of failures. Then it's just a matter of ticking them down as needed. I'd go past the first failure, in case there's a potential stun, knockdown, or other situation that might not take the mook completely out of the fight. A mook that misses two HT checks and isn't dead or unconscious will run away, surrender, or play dead.

You could also combine this with the 'HT roll to survive' idea for mooks. Instead of rolling at the time, roll ahead and tick them off until you get to the failed roll.

I don't see the benefit personally in adding another page/list to my notes as I don't find looking for it is much faster than rolling dice. To each his own, though. Also, lots of HT rolls are made with modifiers so you don't really know when you've rolled a failure.

As for the post-combat HT rolls, again, some combatants will have fled before that, or have died for sure, so you don't know how many rolls you need to make. On top of that, you need to roll for all combatants left at the scene to know how many prisoners the group has if they don't just kill them afterwards.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by corwyn

I don't see the benefit personally in adding another page/list to my notes as I don't find looking for it is much faster than rolling dice. To each his own, though. Also, lots of HT rolls are made with modifiers so you don't really know when you've rolled a failure.

Sure you do. Just note the degree of success/failure on the page.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sure you do. Just note the degree of success/failure on the page.

I thought the idea was to write down a bunch of raw rolls and compare them to the HT of the npc you are rolling for. This would require a different set of rolls for each differing HT in the mob. You can't note MoS/MoF if you don't know the HT in question.

At that point, it's definitely faster for me to just roll. I will concede that this is one time that a system with a one die roll mechanic is better. Savage Worlds has a wonderful system for "extras".

[mhd]

Originally Posted by corwyn

I don't see the benefit personally in adding another page/list to my notes as I don't find looking for it is much faster than rolling dice. To each his own, though. Also, lots of HT rolls are made with modifiers so you don't really know when you've rolled a failure.

Well, if you record it as a binary yes/no, sure, but you could easily jot down the number itself. I've actually done, both and I'm currently using a mixture for big fights: A serious of checkboxes (well, "[ ] [ ]") for the survival rolls, and either making the rest of the rolls myself or using a global list of numbers on top of the sheet.

As for adding sheets, if it's just a few checkboxes or numbers, it just adds another entry to the existing sheet. For me it works like this:

Hobgoblin Bandits
ST 11 DX 12 IQ 10 HT 11 ; HP 12 Will 9 Per 10 FP 11
[Generic skills, ads & disads]
Kizbiigle Deadhallow - Axe-14 (1d+2 cut/sw) & Large Shield-12 (Block 11); Tactics-11 [ ] [ ] 
Rizx Peddlepocket - Large Falchion-12 (1d+3 cut/sw) & Shield-12 (Block 11); [ ]
Zixebaz Sharpblast - Naginata-12 (1d+3 cut/sw; 1d+2 thr/imp); [ ] [ ] [ ]

(format subject to change, last time I ran a longer campaign with larger battles I had checkboxes for HP, too.)

I wanted to create a proper script for this (I had one for D&D way back when), but as one of my players invested some time in making a computer-assisted gaming table, I'm probably going to use MapTool a lot more.

[lachimba]

You can preroll all rolls for mooks if you like. Or just press a button on a dedicated GURPS programme. Or just use average rolls etc Probably I'd always roll for things that directly affect the PCs like attack rolls, otherwise I think you'd take too much out of the game.

Damage though I think it would probably be fine to just have mook attacks do average damage except on a critical where they do max damage (that's more of a guns thing in an action campaign though, rather than rolling 4D6 for every mook bullet, you will save time on every roll). That would actually make them easier to balance as you know exactly if they can penetrate armour or not on every hit. You can also force them to target faces and the like which also makes them easier to balance.