Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF

lachimba · 11-20-2016, 12:31 AM

How do you recommend handling really big fights with generic humanoid monsters in DF? I'm talking 20 plus versus the PCs.

The fight can really get bogged down with a monster on Max HP-1, Max HP-2, knocked down with no weapon, fallen over and so on.

It's almost a chore to track their stunning, conscious and so when what's important is if they are damaging the PCs and the PCs are being forced to spens time and effort on the mobs rather than the boss.

Die at stunning, dismemberment, unconscious or 0HP? And save the complex stuff for the bosses?

mr beer · 11-20-2016, 12:43 AM

I just ran the first session of a new campaign and decided that most enemies will be designated "mooks" to avoid this problem. Under my rules, mooks are out of the fight at 0HP. It ran much smoother this way.

I'm playing the old AD&D module 'Queen of the Spiders', with re-skinned, beefed up Dungeon Fantasy templates and D&D-ified races. The big fight was against 20 hill giants, 6 ogres, 2 stone giants, 1 cloud giant, Nosnra the hill giant chief, his wife and a cave bear. I can't remember how long it ran for in real time but I found it noticeably easier and much faster with the normal hill giants and ogres as mooks.

Also, the players absolutely slaughtered them, they are 500 point characters, but I was surprised at how one sided it was.

David Johnston2 · 11-20-2016, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lachimba

How do you recommend handling really big fights with generic humanoid monsters in DF? I'm talking 20 plus versus the PCs.

The fight can really get bogged down with a monster on Max HP-1, Max HP-2, knocked down with no weapon, fallen over and so on.

It's almost a chore to track their stunning, conscious and so when what's important is if they are damaging the PCs and the PCs are being forced to spens time and effort on the mobs rather than the boss.

Die at stunning, dismemberment, unconscious or 0HP? And save the complex stuff for the bosses?

Sure. Or here's an option. When they're that severely hurt, have them realize that the kids are on the stove and leave.

sir_pudding · 11-20-2016, 03:06 AM

Is there a reason you aren't just using the fodder rules that already exist?

Christopher R. Rice · 11-20-2016, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lachimba

How do you recommend handling really big fights with generic humanoid monsters in DF? I'm talking 20 plus versus the PCs.

The fight can really get bogged down with a monster on Max HP-1, Max HP-2, knocked down with no weapon, fallen over and so on.

It's almost a chore to track their stunning, conscious and so when what's important is if they are damaging the PCs and the PCs are being forced to spens time and effort on the mobs rather than the boss.

Die at stunning, dismemberment, unconscious or 0HP? And save the complex stuff for the bosses?

As others have noted just use Cannon Fodder rules (p. B417) or the fodder rules (which is on p. 27 of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons).

That said, I once ran a combat with over 100 NPCs and a dozen PCs/allies. It took the better part of 10 hours to finish. I will never do that again. Learn from my mistake. :-)

Bruno · 11-20-2016, 06:44 AM

The four simple choices are:

The monsters are sane, and retreat/flee/play dead when they take more than half their HP in injury. This requires somewhere to flee to and some expectation PCs won't just murder surrenders. Crippled monsters and those below 1/3 HP will probably be helped in escaping by allies, which takes more combatants away (probably guys who've taken small wounds will use this excuse).
The monsters are insane, or cornered, and fight to the death-check. Lots of HT rolls ahoy, use a spreadsheet.
The monsters may act insane, but are represented as Mooks and are probably surrendering or fleeing when you hit them, rather than exploding in a shower of sparks. It's an abstraction.
Use the Mass Combat rules.

dripton · 11-20-2016, 09:03 AM

Coincidentally, Peter is talking about this today on Dungeon Fantastic. https://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.co...cs-part-i.html

So, maybe post a comment there asking for more details, after they're done.

starslayer · 11-20-2016, 09:41 AM

My own personal rules of thumb for large groups:

1. Wherever possible handle group attacks as a a single attack with a RoF equal to the number in the group- this simple extraction can turn dozens of roles (which will inevitably result in a few hits) into a single roll (which will have a higher likelyhood to hit)

2. Assuming you balanced them to the party once some members of the group drop there overall likelyhood of doing anything significant to the party goes down radically, so I tend to make moral rolls for the group whenever they loose a member, failure means they route; it just takes unnessasscary attacks against a 'lame duck' from the end of the battle.

mhd · 11-20-2016, 02:54 PM

There's a big difference between a fight with 100 enemies that are available vs. one where the same amount is participating. If you can control the event, it shouldn't be to hard to have an environment where the enemies are prevented from coming at the PCs all at once. That still means that the combat will take long, as they're attacking in waves, but at least the complexity of a single turn will be low enough.

If that many enemies are in one place, I would assume that it's a pretty fixed one, maybe even with a fixed time frame. But even if it's a more improvised battle that can happen at different locations, players are generally quite keen on using the environment to their advantage. So by just avoiding brightly lit open areas, this usually takes care by itself.

I'm not a big fan of "mooks", as I prefer to apply the same rules to both sides. And to be honest, as the PCs are simply more capable, I hardly see the necessity. Whenever I use that many NPCs, I'll make a complete list, with each one getting their own line, with a few pre-rolled HT checks for each one.

Most of our bigger fights use a battlemat and markers. While not as pretty as miniatures, it's easier to correlate your list entry #14 with a leftover floor protection pad with a big "14" on it instead of "that orc figure where I blended the beard and the cuirass too much".

If at all possible, pick foes that have stupid battle tactics. It's much quicker to resolve a combat where frenzied battle bros are getting way too excited and start doing All Out Attacks than a cautious Dwarven phalanx.

sir_pudding · 11-20-2016, 04:12 PM

Using the fodder/worthy/boss rules in my last DF game, I realized that for proper fodder there really isn't much difference in outcomes between treating them as fodder versus worthy, since the PCs typically do enough damage to incapacitate them in one successful hit regardless; so the fodder rules just make it easier.

11-20-2016, 12:43 AM	#2
mr beer Join Date: Mar 2013	Re: Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF I just ran the first session of a new campaign and decided that most enemies will be designated "mooks" to avoid this problem. Under my rules, mooks are out of the fight at 0HP. It ran much smoother this way. I'm playing the old AD&D module 'Queen of the Spiders', with re-skinned, beefed up Dungeon Fantasy templates and D&D-ified races. The big fight was against 20 hill giants, 6 ogres, 2 stone giants, 1 cloud giant, Nosnra the hill giant chief, his wife and a cave bear. I can't remember how long it ran for in real time but I found it noticeably easier and much faster with the normal hill giants and ogres as mooks. Also, the players absolutely slaughtered them, they are 500 point characters, but I was surprised at how one sided it was. Last edited by mr beer; 11-20-2016 at 12:49 AM.

11-20-2016, 03:06 AM	#4
sir_pudding Wielder of Smart Pants Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ventura CA	Re: Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF Is there a reason you aren't just using the fodder rules that already exist?

11-20-2016, 06:44 AM	#6
Bruno Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Canada	Re: Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF The four simple choices are: The monsters are sane, and retreat/flee/play dead when they take more than half their HP in injury. This requires somewhere to flee to and some expectation PCs won't just murder surrenders. Crippled monsters and those below 1/3 HP will probably be helped in escaping by allies, which takes more combatants away (probably guys who've taken small wounds will use this excuse). The monsters are insane, or cornered, and fight to the death-check. Lots of HT rolls ahoy, use a spreadsheet. The monsters may act insane, but are represented as Mooks and are probably surrendering or fleeing when you hit them, rather than exploding in a shower of sparks. It's an abstraction. Use the Mass Combat rules. __________________ All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table A Wiki for my F2F Group A neglected GURPS blog

11-20-2016, 09:03 AM	#7
dripton Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Northern Virginia, USA	Re: Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF Coincidentally, Peter is talking about this today on Dungeon Fantastic. https://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.co...cs-part-i.html So, maybe post a comment there asking for more details, after they're done.

11-20-2016, 09:41 AM	#8
starslayer Join Date: Dec 2006	Re: Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF My own personal rules of thumb for large groups: 1. Wherever possible handle group attacks as a a single attack with a RoF equal to the number in the group- this simple extraction can turn dozens of roles (which will inevitably result in a few hits) into a single roll (which will have a higher likelyhood to hit) 2. Assuming you balanced them to the party once some members of the group drop there overall likelyhood of doing anything significant to the party goes down radically, so I tend to make moral rolls for the group whenever they loose a member, failure means they route; it just takes unnessasscary attacks against a 'lame duck' from the end of the battle. Last edited by starslayer; 11-20-2016 at 08:19 PM. Reason: clarity on my point #2

11-20-2016, 12:31 AM	#1
lachimba MIB Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sydney	Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF How do you recommend handling really big fights with generic humanoid monsters in DF? I'm talking 20 plus versus the PCs. The fight can really get bogged down with a monster on Max HP-1, Max HP-2, knocked down with no weapon, fallen over and so on. It's almost a chore to track their stunning, conscious and so when what's important is if they are damaging the PCs and the PCs are being forced to spens time and effort on the mobs rather than the boss. Die at stunning, dismemberment, unconscious or 0HP? And save the complex stuff for the bosses?

11-20-2016, 02:54 PM	#9
mhd Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Land of the Beer, Home of the Dirndls	Re: Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF There's a big difference between a fight with 100 enemies that are available vs. one where the same amount is participating. If you can control the event, it shouldn't be to hard to have an environment where the enemies are prevented from coming at the PCs all at once. That still means that the combat will take long, as they're attacking in waves, but at least the complexity of a single turn will be low enough. If that many enemies are in one place, I would assume that it's a pretty fixed one, maybe even with a fixed time frame. But even if it's a more improvised battle that can happen at different locations, players are generally quite keen on using the environment to their advantage. So by just avoiding brightly lit open areas, this usually takes care by itself. I'm not a big fan of "mooks", as I prefer to apply the same rules to both sides. And to be honest, as the PCs are simply more capable, I hardly see the necessity. Whenever I use that many NPCs, I'll make a complete list, with each one getting their own line, with a few pre-rolled HT checks for each one. Most of our bigger fights use a battlemat and markers. While not as pretty as miniatures, it's easier to correlate your list entry #14 with a leftover floor protection pad with a big "14" on it instead of "that orc figure where I blended the beard and the cuirass too much". If at all possible, pick foes that have stupid battle tactics. It's much quicker to resolve a combat where frenzied battle bros are getting way too excited and start doing All Out Attacks than a cautious Dwarven phalanx.

11-20-2016, 04:12 PM	#10
sir_pudding Wielder of Smart Pants Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ventura CA	Re: Really big fights with humanoid monsters in DF Using the fodder/worthy/boss rules in my last DF game, I realized that for proper fodder there really isn't much difference in outcomes between treating them as fodder versus worthy, since the PCs typically do enough damage to incapacitate them in one successful hit regardless; so the fodder rules just make it easier.