What are some good tricks to handling lots of NPC's in combat, keeping track of like 7 or 9 goblins HP as well as 4 bugbears gets confusing sometimes. Yes I have miniatures, should I put numbers on each mini and use that to keep track?
The first thing I can think of to keep things flowing for moderately large enemy groups like you described, roll multiple attacks together, ideally with multiple colours of dice. So say the red d20 tells you if goblin 1 hit while the green and blue d20s tell you if goblins 2 and 3 hit, then you just look at the other dice of the same color and tally up the damage and add narrative flair as required. If you are using a mix of hostile and allied NPCs then I would guess at average damage for the 2 sides attacking each other, only rolling against the PCs, likewise for a massive hoard I would estimate the expected damage rather than rolling all of them.
When it comes to keeping track of health, I have a 'system' of just counting from one end of the board to the other and numbering monsters that way, on the up side this is quick but the catch is I am pretty sure I sometimes lose track of which is which as they move around, so sometimes damage is taken off the wrong health bar. But the total hp for the group is unchanged and my players never complain (also it makes it less predictable when each will drop and that is probably a good thing).
I created a spreadsheet that I print out. The right column has space for Initiative Order. The left two thirds of the Encounter Tracker is divided into three portions where I can enter stats for up to three KINDS of enemies (ie. Bandits, Bandits Chief, Wolf). I prepare this before a session as a possible encounter. All stats and actions are recorded for easy reference.
For tracking HP, tonight I ran 6 Bandits and 1 Chief My tokens are marked with numbers and I have a place to mark starting HP for each individual enemy. Bandit #1 starts with 11 HP and it is on the sheet. When Bandit #1 takes 5 damage, I draw a line through the 11 and write 6 next to it. If later in Combat he takes 4 damage I draw a line through the 6 and write 2 next to it. When he is dropped to 0 or less, I cross through the block to indicate he is out of the fight. I do this for each of a kind of enemy.
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Thank you. ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
have the players help. it's okay to ask for them to keep track o enemy or friendly npc health points. have the larger numbers of monster fight in groups. Like three goblins make one and three more make another. also if your players have to many npc friends in the group try setting a limit on how many they can have a time They would have to sap one out for the other.
You guys are ok with the players keeping track of the monsters HP? I generally don’t like to give them an exact number, if they ask how bad of shape the monster is in I just say “oh it looks pretty beat up” of “its Barely scratched”.
In my mind if they have an exact number then that gives them a little of an unfair advantage splitting up attacks.
Not sure how "good" of a trick this is, but for larger encounters with 7+ mobs, I have a sheet of paper then have the monsters in their initiative order.
We do have numbers on minis or sometimes will just have a small square of paper representing the monster (ie m1) then beside the monster on my piece of paper I will put an "m1" so that I know what's what.
Also on that paper I keep the monster's base AC and health, so I can keep marking it off quickly. I also put "initiative counters" at the top of my dm screen so everyone knows when their turn is an can be prepared. I then slide the counter to the right once they have completed their turn (that way i am less likely to skip folks/monsters).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
My way of dealing with large groups has always been to try to lump them into 3-5 monsters per "creature" on the field. So, if there were 35 goblins, I'd have 7 "creatures" on the field each representing 5 goblins. I then treat each one the same way you would a Swarm: shared HP pool and AC, I do the average damage of a goblin but add a damage die per 2 creatures in the group rounded up. As they take damage, a Goblin dies so the attacks get weaker and the group gets smaller. So, a group of 5 goblins would have a stat block like this:
My way of dealing with large groups has always been to try to lump them into 3-5 monsters per "creature" on the field. So, if there were 35 goblins, I'd have 7 "creatures" on the field each representing 5 goblins. I then treat each one the same way you would a Swarm: shared HP pool and AC, I do the average damage of a goblin but add a damage die per 2 creatures in the group rounded up. As they take damage, a Goblin dies so the attacks get weaker and the group gets smaller. So, a group of 5 goblins would have a stat block like this:
If reminds me a bit of the AngryDM's Paragon creature concept, except that you're "re-skinning" the Paragon creature as a group of smaller creatures, and rather than multiple actions, you're making their "conglomerate action" more powerful.
Unit tactics, 5e style: group initiative for the, group movements, single attack - this really simplifies large scale combat a lot.
There might be a bit of an issue here with reactions and opportunities of attack, though - maybe this group of Goblins has multiple possible reactions, although I might take the "mob modifier" off of such attacks, so the goblin unit taking an attack of opportunity might only dish out 3d6 scimitar damage.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Yea, when it comes to OA's, reactions, special abilities (such as the Goblin's Nimble Escape), I still treat it all as one creature. This reduces the overhead and still allows for the situations to be taken into account. It does lessen the effect of certain abilities and actions, but I've never seen it break combat in any significant way.
An example of this would be Pack Tactics. With a group of 5 creatures it could be assumed that Pack Tactics is always in effect, or it could be assumed that it is just a static modifier on the To Hit. It really depends on how you want to handle it. However, by the time you're having these type of massive battles, the players should have the tools necessary to mitigate these types of bonuses.
As to the parallel to Angry's Paragon creature, I never considered it, but I have found that he and I have similar thought processes.
The tactic I use which I got from dungeon dudes is that for each player, there should be one grunt who is about a moderate difficulty for that player. On top of that, all other enemies are minions, that is they roll the same as monsters of that type but essentially have one hp. All minions move at the same time and you roll for all of them at once. This works really well to let players feel like they're growing as well. Yesterday's grunt is today's minion.
For a party of 4 level 3, you could do a hobgoblin captain (the boss), three hobgoblins (grunts), and two wolves (minions). The minions are there to challenge the player's crowd control and coordination, and their battlefield coordination to minimize damage from the grunts during that first round of combat.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
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What are some good tricks to handling lots of NPC's in combat, keeping track of like 7 or 9 goblins HP as well as 4 bugbears gets confusing sometimes. Yes I have miniatures, should I put numbers on each mini and use that to keep track?
The first thing I can think of to keep things flowing for moderately large enemy groups like you described, roll multiple attacks together, ideally with multiple colours of dice. So say the red d20 tells you if goblin 1 hit while the green and blue d20s tell you if goblins 2 and 3 hit, then you just look at the other dice of the same color and tally up the damage and add narrative flair as required. If you are using a mix of hostile and allied NPCs then I would guess at average damage for the 2 sides attacking each other, only rolling against the PCs, likewise for a massive hoard I would estimate the expected damage rather than rolling all of them.
When it comes to keeping track of health, I have a 'system' of just counting from one end of the board to the other and numbering monsters that way, on the up side this is quick but the catch is I am pretty sure I sometimes lose track of which is which as they move around, so sometimes damage is taken off the wrong health bar. But the total hp for the group is unchanged and my players never complain (also it makes it less predictable when each will drop and that is probably a good thing).
I created a spreadsheet that I print out. The right column has space for Initiative Order. The left two thirds of the Encounter Tracker is divided into three portions where I can enter stats for up to three KINDS of enemies (ie. Bandits, Bandits Chief, Wolf). I prepare this before a session as a possible encounter. All stats and actions are recorded for easy reference.
For tracking HP, tonight I ran 6 Bandits and 1 Chief My tokens are marked with numbers and I have a place to mark starting HP for each individual enemy. Bandit #1 starts with 11 HP and it is on the sheet. When Bandit #1 takes 5 damage, I draw a line through the 11 and write 6 next to it. If later in Combat he takes 4 damage I draw a line through the 6 and write 2 next to it. When he is dropped to 0 or less, I cross through the block to indicate he is out of the fight. I do this for each of a kind of enemy.
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
have the players help. it's okay to ask for them to keep track o enemy or friendly npc health points. have the larger numbers of monster fight in groups. Like three goblins make one and three more make another. also if your players have to many npc friends in the group try setting a limit on how many they can have a time They would have to sap one out for the other.
You guys are ok with the players keeping track of the monsters HP? I generally don’t like to give them an exact number, if they ask how bad of shape the monster is in I just say “oh it looks pretty beat up” of “its Barely scratched”.
In my mind if they have an exact number then that gives them a little of an unfair advantage splitting up attacks.
true, but i this case you would let them know the hp of grunts, who don't matter, and npc, who the players my want to heal and protect.
Not sure how "good" of a trick this is, but for larger encounters with 7+ mobs, I have a sheet of paper then have the monsters in their initiative order.
We do have numbers on minis or sometimes will just have a small square of paper representing the monster (ie m1) then beside the monster on my piece of paper I will put an "m1" so that I know what's what.
Also on that paper I keep the monster's base AC and health, so I can keep marking it off quickly. I also put "initiative counters" at the top of my dm screen so everyone knows when their turn is an can be prepared. I then slide the counter to the right once they have completed their turn (that way i am less likely to skip folks/monsters).
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
My way of dealing with large groups has always been to try to lump them into 3-5 monsters per "creature" on the field. So, if there were 35 goblins, I'd have 7 "creatures" on the field each representing 5 goblins. I then treat each one the same way you would a Swarm: shared HP pool and AC, I do the average damage of a goblin but add a damage die per 2 creatures in the group rounded up. As they take damage, a Goblin dies so the attacks get weaker and the group gets smaller. So, a group of 5 goblins would have a stat block like this:
Goblins (5)
HP: 35
AC: 15
Scimitar: 3d6 +6
Shortbow: 3d6 +6
I really like this idea, a lot.
If reminds me a bit of the AngryDM's Paragon creature concept, except that you're "re-skinning" the Paragon creature as a group of smaller creatures, and rather than multiple actions, you're making their "conglomerate action" more powerful.
Unit tactics, 5e style: group initiative for the, group movements, single attack - this really simplifies large scale combat a lot.
There might be a bit of an issue here with reactions and opportunities of attack, though - maybe this group of Goblins has multiple possible reactions, although I might take the "mob modifier" off of such attacks, so the goblin unit taking an attack of opportunity might only dish out 3d6 scimitar damage.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Yea, when it comes to OA's, reactions, special abilities (such as the Goblin's Nimble Escape), I still treat it all as one creature. This reduces the overhead and still allows for the situations to be taken into account. It does lessen the effect of certain abilities and actions, but I've never seen it break combat in any significant way.
An example of this would be Pack Tactics. With a group of 5 creatures it could be assumed that Pack Tactics is always in effect, or it could be assumed that it is just a static modifier on the To Hit. It really depends on how you want to handle it. However, by the time you're having these type of massive battles, the players should have the tools necessary to mitigate these types of bonuses.
As to the parallel to Angry's Paragon creature, I never considered it, but I have found that he and I have similar thought processes.
The tactic I use which I got from dungeon dudes is that for each player, there should be one grunt who is about a moderate difficulty for that player. On top of that, all other enemies are minions, that is they roll the same as monsters of that type but essentially have one hp. All minions move at the same time and you roll for all of them at once. This works really well to let players feel like they're growing as well. Yesterday's grunt is today's minion.
For a party of 4 level 3, you could do a hobgoblin captain (the boss), three hobgoblins (grunts), and two wolves (minions). The minions are there to challenge the player's crowd control and coordination, and their battlefield coordination to minimize damage from the grunts during that first round of combat.
I love his content; hate his writing style :p Still - I will still sit through the 15,000 words of rambling to get at the underlying concepts.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.