We had our first session yesterday, and I decided to sport some undeads and witness the power of Turn Undead. Many lulz were had.
However… Skeletons are labeled as “horde”, so I decided to drag in around 20 of them. After nearly killing two of my three players off, they got a brief respite when they killed a sentient skeleton that commanded them.
But guess what, I hate bookkeeping. Skeletons have 7 HP and 1 armor, and it is a rare event that even the darn fighter kills them in one blow. As such, I had to track the HP of around 7 skellies at a time.
How do my fellow GMs deal with this? I felt that it quickly got a little arbitrary, since I quickly forgot which skeleton the HP count belonged to.
I normally jot down 1 heart for every 3 health an enemy has- 2 hearts per skelly in your case (and maybe a cheeky extra heart at the end for the extra 1 HP) so I don’t have as much to fill out. 3, 6 or 9 damage isn’t unlikely for many classes to deal if an enemy has armour 1 and they’re rolling standard damage dice. If in doubt, I mark off a heart – be a fan of the characters and all that.
20 skellies would still mean a lot of hearts to jot down though! I’d be inclined to just do it as one big statline. If you forget which skeleton has which, it’s not the end of the world provided you have an overall measure of the horde’s health. (You can describe it in the narrative as certain skeletons going down in one blow, others reforming before the character’s eyes.)
the one time i did a horde battle i had them have one big pool of HP and when so 10 skeletons would be a 70 hp mob every time it drops by 7, the mob gets smaller
I use the same system of Andrew Murphy: One big pool of hp for big mobs.
It speeds things up, and give it the sense of the heat of battle.
I had a group fighting with a tribe of sea elves pirates that use to perform human sacrifices as ritual. When the party tryed to stop them, they were swarming fiercely.
The cool things (opposito to other rpg) us that of this battle I remember what happened, but I don’t have much memories of “numbers”, and it was everything so fast and engaging, even with many differen things happening:
-swarming sea elves.
-ritual drowning of the victims.
-the tide rising (they were on a small rocky island).
-ships on fire.
the barbarian surrounded by enemies, the warrior making his way to the top hill were cultist were chanting and calling the high tide, and the druid shashifted into a huge amphibious creature…
It didn’t took a whole (or half) session or a plethora of dice rolls or notes! It was really happening!
EDIT: sorry I just noticed that I went too much off topic, it was enought to say “I use the big hp pool thing”…let’s say I have provided and extensive example of why I use hp pools.
I usually track them all. I tend to group them in my mind like “the 3 with the fighter” etc.
However, most times with horde monsters the individual HP doesn’t matter as much and more if you can kill the one you have problems with right now.
I don’t like putting them into 1 big pile of HP because of that.
Also remember this H&S move:
“If the action that triggers the move could reasonably hurt multiple targets roll once and apply damage to each target (they each get their armor).”
“If the action that triggers the move could reasonably hurt multiple targets roll once and apply damage to each target (they each get their armor).”
a good point, cant remember if this came up…
but i’d just
ok you’re fighting 5 or so right?
so do your damage to 5 of them at once!, 5 damage each you say… ok
(marks 25 damage off of the group HP)
“you’re giant sweeping attack blasts 3 of the skeletons to pieces with one them lopped in half with his boney brothers piled ontop of him, he crawls out of the bone pile and reaches for the wizards ankles, ranger you spot its boney hands reaching what are you going to do!”
I split them into groups, and have one half-dead one in each group. So it’s only keeping track of like three numbers of monsters, and three healths.
For a horde of 20 skellies I would make them 1 HP each and play them like a 16 hp dragon.
Wynand Louw While that would be easier, then that would be to much of a rules change.
Depends on the feel you’re going for. I ran a battle against a horde of weak zombies and gave the heroes access to this move (for the duration of the encounter):
When you attack the horde in melee, roll + CON. On a 10+ you slay three of the creatures. On a 7 – 9, you slay one creature and the horde attacks you.
Nothing super unique but it work out well and the players always enjoy a custom Move.
Frankly Andrew Murphy, Wynand Louw, and John Lewis all have systems that make sense to me. In John’s case I might only introduce a custom move if the horde was something the group would be encountering regularly that session or in the current front. If this is a one time thing I would go with the big pool or the 16hp dragon approach, depending on what the fiction demanded at the time. Great question Kasper Brohus Allerslev!
Custom moves should have the opportunity to be featured more than once!