How to Use Mob Combat Effectively In D&D

Mother? Ulf whispered as he moved towards the visage of his long dead mother.

It is I, little Snow Hare, Ulf's mother said, using Ulf's childhood pet name. When

he was younger, his hair was so blonde it was almost white. His mother had taken to

calling him Snow Hare when he was a baby. Even though he'd hated the nickname

as a teenager, she'd still use it. Now hearing that nickname pricked his heart,

and tears slowly formed at the corner of his Yes, young one, we have come to oversee

your trial, said a much more masculine voice. Yes, young one, we have come to see,

yes, young one, we have come to oversee your trial, said a much more masculine voice.

Overwatched as the visage of his father appeared next to his mother,

his arm resting slightly, his arm resting lightly on her shoulder. Honestly son,

we are disappointed." Ulf stared dumbfounded. He expected them to say something comforting

but instead they were here to judge him? We expected Moe from the youth who downed

a frost cat in his eleventh winter. Truly, what have you been doing? Ulf's father

continued. Ulf's mouth went dry. I... I... son, you cannot sit in dreams forever.

Herlia and Hipon both need your help." Ulf's mother admonished. "'Kojari needs your

help, son. The kingdom of the Golden Dea needs your help." Ulf's father added. "'But

aren't you here for the trials?' Ulf asked, confused. "'We are,' Ulf's father said

as he looked at Ulf's mother.

It is the initiation. You aren't supposed to complete the trial here. Your trial is said

to take place with the help of your friends." Ulf's father paused. Son, you can't

just keep wasting away your time. I know it's hard. You failed. Hjudir is dead.

Nothing you can do can change that. Tears began falling slowly down Ulf's face.

I am so untouchable. Ulf said, bitterness punctuating his comment. Everyone around me

dies or is lost to me. Why? Why is it me that has to survive? Why can't I pass

on to the realm of the gods? Why do you have to leave me? Ulf said as his knees

buckled and he slumped down to all fours. Son, Hjulir made his own choice as did

we all. It doesn't matter who lives and dies Who matters now is the present What

matters now is the present Son, Hüder made his own choice, as did we all. You've

been saved for something else, and it doesn't matter who lives and dies. What

matters now is the present. What matters is that you have three friends who desperately

need you. Save those that can still be saved. Ulf's mother whispered into his ear.

So what would you like to do? Welcome back, Dungeon Masters. Today, you're with me,

Justin Lewis, as we discuss mob combat. We all love to watch movies with amazing battle

scenes at the end. You know, I'm talking about Lord of the Rings with Aragon charging

into Mordor with the armies of all men behind him. You know, I'm also talking

about Star Wars. Actually, every Star Wars movie where one side ends up fighting

the other. where all of the snapped people come back to fight the final battle

scene, you know? And in each of these scenes we have the main characters who fight

their adversaries, but we also see...

These nameless foes occasionally jump into the mix to fight the main characters.

And on an individual basis, these nameless mini enemies are no match for our

heroes, but in the sheer volume in which they're usually present, they present

a formidable obstacle. So today, let's talk about using mob combat effectively. So

first of all, what is mob combat? In simple terms, mob combat is using many low-level

adversaries in an encounter to pose a much larger threat And this is the idea of

throwing numerous baddies at your adventurers that when encountered alone would

just be one swipe of an axe But together are endless axe swings and this is the comp

that This is the concept of numbers over skill You can use mob combat in many different

situations and it doesn't need to be an enormous battle scene like those that

I've mentioned before In fact one example is a swarm of ravenous ants sure the

players can swipe at each of them individually area of effect would work a lot

better, as would just running away. And because you're not fighting just one foe,

but instead are trying to keep your head above a rising tide, so to speak, mob

combat functions like a mix between a skill challenge and a combat encounter. In

fact, in my opinion, there are three ways to actually do mob combat.

Number one, I call the combined method. In the combined method of mob combat, you essentially

think of the actual numbers of adversaries. For example, in my campaign, I used mob combat

when my players were fighting these small automaton drones. And each drone was

a very paltry fight, but together they were formidable. I calculated that my

group would face four masses of drones. Rather than having them fight each individual

drone, I decided that they would fight four mobs 20 drones. That way, and the way

I did it, the AC of each mob was equal to the number of drones left alive. Each drone

had technically three hit points, so each three hit points killed a drone. The

mob's attack was equal to 10 plus the number of drones left alive, so starting

out, the mob would hit for 30 and do 30 damage. But fairly quickly in the engagement,

the damage would decrease because the number of drones would die quickly. And

the reason why this method is together all the baddies. This means you can scale the

fight to whatever your group can handle if they are level 20 and fighting orcs or just

if they are level 20 and fighting orcs just isn't what it used to be have them

fight mobs of 20 orcs and see how that works. The only drawback with this method

is that you do have to do a lot of math both before the encounter and during.

Number two is what I call the simple method. In this method you

is a mob of other creatures, you can think of a swarm of rats as an example. They

function as one creature, but in reality, they are multiple. There are already some creatures

like this out there, but you could easily create your own if you wanted to. To

start with, I would pick the creature you want to work with.

Then the easiest place to start would be to increase its health substantially. And

you're going to have to go for more of a gut feel for what would be good rather

than using math to calculate it all. And next, if that isn't doing it for you, you

can raise their AC a little bit. I would only raise it a few points because you

still want your heroes to kill lots of the members of the mob with every swing.

So only keep it up, you know, one or two points. Lastly, maybe think about raising

the attack bonus and maybe the damage. so theoretically they should be able to swarm

the heroes and do damage just by sheer overwhelming volume. Lastly, there's what I

call the skill challenge. In this method you do away with even more of the math

and you only roll initiative to see who goes first. And instead of rolling damage

and attack bonuses, you essentially just roll a check to see if the hero makes

it through the combat without damage. For each round I would assign a DC,

and a relevant skill to use, or you could just use your player's attack bonus.

Then assign the mob a specific DC. And if the player fails the DC, then they do

not kill any adversaries within the mob. I would probably split it into a tier

system so if the player rolls at least a 10 below the DC, then the mob scores a critical

hit on the player and damage is doubled. If the player rolls 5 below the DC, then the

mob scores a hit and just deals normal damage. If the player rolls just under the

DC, then nothing happens. player rolls above the DC then some damage is dealt to the

mob as an entity and if the player rolls five above the DC then it's considered

a critical hit and double damage is dealt. With this last method you can simplify

combat a lot and you could even turn the adversaries into a mob and take turns having

different players roll for the DC to see what happens. So the next question is

why use mob combat at all? And one of the most combat is to give variety to your

encounters. You don't always want to have your heroes fighting someone of equal

or greater skill proficiency. Sometimes you just want to give your players a chance

to lay waste to an entire army much like the Avengers do. And these mob rules could

as and these mob rules could also theoretically be used for war combat in which

so much is going on that you can't really focus on one individual foe because

you're being harried this way and that. And the real reason to use mob combat

is to shake things up for your yourself. We've recently talked about losing your excitement

as a DM and honestly the best way to avoid that is to do cool new things that

make players stop and pay attention. You need to break their state of constancy

and honestly sometimes you need to break yours too. So the next question is when

should I use commm? But maybe you're asking, Justin, when do I use mob combat? Mob

combat can be placed in a lot of scenarios. A rule of thumb is whenever a one on one fight

isn't satisfying enough, then try mob combat. For example, you might consider

adding some mob fighting to the big boss battle. Having your heroes harried by

smaller adversaries while they're trying to focus on a bigger one might add that

spice that they're looking for in that encounter. Or you might add mob combat

when your characters are part of a larger engagement, like an alien invasion.

for example. Lastly, you could add mob combat when you want the stakes to be just

a little bit higher, or at least feel that way, without actually having to make the

situation that much worse. It's one thing to say you are now fighting a monster,

and it's another thing to say that you are now fighting a horde of monsters. Really,

you are now fighting a horde of monsters. Really, you are now fighting a horde of monsters.

Really, you are now fighting there are not too many bad places to put mob combat.

If it can work in your story, then put it in.

How do you balance mob combat encounters in Dungeons & Dragons? Naturally, with mob combat, it helps to playtest certain things out.

Or just let things fall where they may in the game, for better or worse, and then adapt next time. If it helps, you can pick a monster or group of monsters.

whose challenge ratings would create a good enough challenge for the heroes you're

playing with. And then from there, just change their skins, quote unquote, and

maybe a few of their abilities, and you should have a pretty well-balanced encounter.

Of course, if you go the skill challenge route, you need to think less about balancing

the encounter and more about creating an encounter that is fun and interesting. So

in practice, this looks essentially like this. You pick a monster, let's say a

Lich, right? And instead of it being a Lich, you keep the stats, as an army of undead,

right? A full army. That's a nice way to change up mob encounter. That's an easy

way to balance mob encounters because you already have the CR, the challenge rating

for the Lich, and your players theoretically should be up to the task. All you need to do

is just split it out so it's a large entity. If you go this route, I might consider

doing Theater of the Mind because having it played on an actual battlemob might

be a little bit hard. How do I create interesting and engaging mob combat encounters?

For me, the most engaging mob encounters are one of two things.

For me, the most engaging mob encounters include two aspects. Number one, they are intensely

story-driven, and number two, they feel real and scary. Let me give you a great

example. The famous YouTubers, Hi Rollers from the UK, did this in their Erois

campaign. Spoiler alert, if you haven't listened to that, stop listening unless you

wanna get the spoiler, it doesn't matter. Yeah, spoiler alert. So in their campaign,

they had the heroes go to this lost city of Insane Warforged fight a essentially

fallen angel type warforged, all while being attacked by masses of crazed robots.

And the robots were in mob form, but the fallen angel warforged was a standalone

monster. And because the entire campaign had shown the dangers of warforged going crazy,

you knew full well how many there were as well as how tragic it is that they

had gone crazy. You also could understand that in an enormous city there would be tens

of thousands of them. They also did They brought them in in intervals, which likely

allowed the DM to balance the combat by bringing in a new mob whenever things got

easy. How do you make sure mob combat encounters are not too overwhelming or frustrating

for players? I like the method of bringing in mobs and slowly adding more or

taking away extra when you need to. Plus, as a DM, you can always fudge the numbers.

If the encounter is going way too fast, either let it finish and move on, or

you can make it harder. On the flip side, if your players are getting frustrated

with the mobs more than they are to then have the mobs die a lot faster than you'd

originally anticipated. Having that DM screen is nice because you can change up

things in the moment without having to let your players know. It's not their job

to worry about the stats of all the monsters. It's their job to be the best player

character possible. That said, play testing things is always a good idea. So if

it does take more time though, I don't think there's anything wrong with just putting

it in the campaign and making switches on the fly. What are some common mistakes to

avoid when running mob combat? in Dungeons and Dragons. I think one big mistake

that people might make is accidentally making the mob way too powerful. The mob should

be a group of individuals that are easily taken down by themselves. So that means

you should be able to narrate that with each swing your PC kills one or two at

least. The whole point of a mob is to allow your PCs to feel like they're mowing

down the enemies, but there are so many enemies that it almost doesn't matter.

Another mistake I think you can make is not making the stakes high enough. Yes,

the player is... Yes, the party is supposed to to mow down the mob members, but

they should still feel like their character is in danger. How do I scale mob

combat encounters for different party sizes and levels? You can scale mob combat

using one of two methods. The first method is to add more mobs as the encounter

goes on. This means that you need to start slow and only throw in mobs when you

are sure it's time. You'll also need to prepare this narratively. It won't seem

natural for another mob of gnolls to show up out of nowhere in the middle of

the desert when you describe that there were only four. is to tweak the stats

of the mob mid-combat. Just like the other method, you want to do this one slowly,

but at least you don't have to set this one up narratively. Both of these methods

can be done in combat or while you are playtesting. Otherwise, I'd just say to

use the encounter builder at D&D Beyond. How do I use terrain and environmental factors

in mob combat encounters? You can use terrain and the environment in many ways.

This honestly could be its own podcast episode, but specifically with mob combat,

and the environment to highlight the feeling that fighting a mob brings. If you

were to fight a mob in real life, you'd likely feel overwhelmed, perhaps inevitability,

maybe a hopelessness at the sheer volume of creatures coming towards you. So

I would recommend using terrain to amplify or highlight these feelings. So perhaps

the adventurers are running out of safe places to stand and fight because the

space they are in is filling up with baddies. Or maybe you create some sort of shut

off valve mechanic, like the orcs can keep coming towers are destroyed. Something

like that. What are some examples of memorable mob combat encounters in Dungeons

and Dragons? I already mentioned one that comes from High Rollers, a rose campaign

with a crazed warford. Of course there's the classic encounter that everyone has when

they are in the sewers fighting swarms of rats. Also a quick sidebar even when a creature

is made of a swarm of other things, swarm of bats, swarm of bees, that is still

technically mob combat. So there you have it. I hope I answered a few questions

about mob and I hope that you put it into your games. If you do, take a picture

of it and post it on social media, specifically Instagram, and make sure to tag

how to be a better DM because we'd love to see what you get up to. Also make sure

to send me any ideas on things I've missed or even feedback about the show. If

there's one thing I've learned talking to listeners of the show, it's that at least

half of you have much more experience than I do. And we can all learn something from

you. So even if you want to record a small blurb or something, send it to me,

there's a good chance it'll make it on the show. Before I end the show real quick,

a quick shout out to Chris and Mary Lynn. I hope I got your names right. From Mount

Pleasant, Utah, I had the opportunity to see them over the week at an event I was

doing for Monsters.Rent, which is our service for providing minis at rental cost.

But thanks again Chris and Mary Lynn, I think the name was. Thank you guys for coming

and seeing me at Provo Town Center Mall. and it was so cool to meet people and

put a face to the listener. So, thanks again for listening to today's episode. We'll

be back next week for another amazing show, but until then, let's go ahead and Roll