so i'm playing a necromancer. I'm well aware of class issues and how minions can make the game boring for other players. I've currently reached lvl 9 and, despite having the ability to produce more than 20 creatures with a little preparation and still have a good amount of spell slots to use, I've been avoiding producing too many minions, never going beyond 5 until now. In the next game section, we'll prepare to invade a goblin camp and we'll penetrate a pyramid to stop the bbeg's plans. as it's obvious that goblins won't do anything against a lvl9 group, I'm expecting a massive amount of them to drain the group's resources before the boss. So, I see an opportunity to be able to see the full capacity of the necromancer, surprise the GM with an epic scene and not spoil everyone's fun: the idea is to produce as many zombies as possible, storm the goblin camp and, while the fight happens, and the goblins are busy dying, we the party storm the pyramid to take on the bbeg in full force. my question is, since we're going to have to exit at some point, how will the gm determine the winner of this pitched battle? by comparison, goblins have hp7, ca15 and are capable of strategic thinking. my zombies have hp30, ca8, undead fortitude and just run to the first visible target and attack. i know gm can set the outcome that is most interesting to the story, but is there a fair way to determine the most likely outcome considering the variables? how would you narrate this clash of two forces of many minions?
Most likely I'd just say that the goblins are routed with heavy casualties once the BBEG is taken down.
Zombies are easy for seasoned adventurers, but not so easy for unleveled humanoids. On top of that, your zombies are tougher and hit harder than standard zombies thanks to your class abilities. Depending on how many goblins there are, they might be able to hold out but it will almost certainly cost them and goblins tend not to be the stoutest of hearts under the best circumstances. Without a leader they're not going to put up an organized defense. But your GM might choose differently.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Well, we have a Druid in our party and it's a given he's going to summon/conjure a ton of "minions". We have played them all having a turn and it wasn't awful considering the benefits to the party. As of now, we are using https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#HandlingMobs and it works well too.
This depends on the GM. I do not think it is a good idea to surprise the GM in general. While I personally do not care about surprises or plotlines, some GMs are less free form and have a story that is more planned out.
If you know your GM well and they are okay with surprises, then go ahead and surprise them. If you do not know your GM well, I would run it by them first to make sure that they are okay with it.
In my opinion, I think raising an army pretty much comes with the territory of being a necromancer, so I do not think it is a big deal, but I would run by the GM just in case.
One of the scourges of the game are minions, sidekicks, pets, familiars, whatever you want to call them. On a tiny table, they can perform a valuable function. On a large table, they simply bog down the turn economy (different from action economy).
I believe the point in this case is to take them out of the combat economy altogether and have this minion on minion stuff just happen in the background. Maybe the DM rolls a couple of dice to see how it goes, maybe they just make an executive decision. Either way, all the attention is really on the fight between the PCs and the BBEG (and possibly some of his more prized henchmen).
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One of the scourges of the game are minions, sidekicks, pets, familiars, whatever you want to call them. On a tiny table, they can perform a valuable function. On a large table, they simply bog down the turn economy (different from action economy).
I believe the point in this case is to take them out of the combat economy altogether and have this minion on minion stuff just happen in the background. Maybe the DM rolls a couple of dice to see how it goes, maybe they just make an executive decision. Either way, all the attention is really on the fight between the PCs and the BBEG (and possibly some of his more prized henchmen).
If this minion on minion fight takes place in the background, with some handwaving by the DM deciding the outcome, why introduce it at all? Because it "sounds cool"? The other players are not invested in it, the player that actually introduced his minions into the mix does not actually see or be involved in any way with the outcome as the DM makes an "executive decision", and the DM now has another headache to deal with.
It is far better to simply NOT do it in the first place, as it adds nothing to the game.
It avoids a possibly drawn-out fight that's presumably not supposed to be meaningful in the first place. If the whole encampment is meant to merely be a hindrance, spending more time on it than necessary would be an annoyance.
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I think if someone had invested significantly into building their characters around using summoned/conjured or created minions, they should have a tangible way to use their abilities. That's just me. The Horde rules I posted aren't hard to use, at all.
There's no RAW simulation of this that makes any practical sense. You could literally play out every zombie and every goblin and roll 10,000 attack rolls to decide it, but that wouldn't be much fun.
Just let the DM determine how to decide the outcome. Maybe they'll have you roll Int check to devise a good battle strategy or a Cha check to inspire the zombies to fight to the undeath. The DM will decide the DC.
Especially because this is a potentially session-breaking piece of powergaming, it's a good idea to leave the DM some discretion about whether it succeeds. It might even be a good idea to give the DM a heads up about your plan, if you think it's possible you can bypass have of what he's prepared for the session. At least let him know you might be cheesing some encounters and he should generally prepare a little extra material if he's able.
I think if someone had invested significantly into building their characters around using summoned/conjured or created minions, they should have a tangible way to use their abilities. That's just me. The Horde rules I posted aren't hard to use, at all.
Umm..you might want to read the rules again on what I assume is page 250 of the DMG. Those rules are geared for many on one, not many on many. I would love to see you detail round 1 and 2 game mechanics of 30 goblins versus 20 zombies. Bottom line, a player should not be building chars that are geared around conjuring large quantities of entities onto a battlemap. It is a selfish thing to do, as it slows down the game for everyone else at the table. Just because WOTC material gives the opportunity to do something is no reason to actually do that thing.
I do see your point. No matter how you resolve combat with that many creatures involved, it is time consuming. Our DM uses a lot of creatures in his encounters so, one player that has the same ability doesn't bother our group either. Here is why. The player summons 16 creatures. They are controlled as units of 4 with the Horde rules. The players makes attacks for those creatures and decides his own action on that turn so, five attack resolutions for them. That's is hardly different than me playing my Fighter who has between 5 and 7 attack resolutions on my turn(extra attack, twf bonus action attack, action surge, special reaction attack like riposte or AoO).
TLDR; It really is a question of does it fly in your group. If it does, it's not that difficult to implement. If most of the group hates the idea, I wouldn't consider playing a character built around controlling a ton of minions.
so i'm playing a necromancer. I'm well aware of class issues and how minions can make the game boring for other players. I've currently reached lvl 9 and, despite having the ability to produce more than 20 creatures with a little preparation and still have a good amount of spell slots to use, I've been avoiding producing too many minions, never going beyond 5 until now. In the next game section, we'll prepare to invade a goblin camp and we'll penetrate a pyramid to stop the bbeg's plans. as it's obvious that goblins won't do anything against a lvl9 group, I'm expecting a massive amount of them to drain the group's resources before the boss. So, I see an opportunity to be able to see the full capacity of the necromancer, surprise the GM with an epic scene and not spoil everyone's fun: the idea is to produce as many zombies as possible, storm the goblin camp and, while the fight happens, and the goblins are busy dying, we the party storm the pyramid to take on the bbeg in full force. my question is, since we're going to have to exit at some point, how will the gm determine the winner of this pitched battle? by comparison, goblins have hp7, ca15 and are capable of strategic thinking. my zombies have hp30, ca8, undead fortitude and just run to the first visible target and attack. i know gm can set the outcome that is most interesting to the story, but is there a fair way to determine the most likely outcome considering the variables? how would you narrate this clash of two forces of many minions?
Most likely I'd just say that the goblins are routed with heavy casualties once the BBEG is taken down.
Zombies are easy for seasoned adventurers, but not so easy for unleveled humanoids. On top of that, your zombies are tougher and hit harder than standard zombies thanks to your class abilities. Depending on how many goblins there are, they might be able to hold out but it will almost certainly cost them and goblins tend not to be the stoutest of hearts under the best circumstances. Without a leader they're not going to put up an organized defense. But your GM might choose differently.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Well, we have a Druid in our party and it's a given he's going to summon/conjure a ton of "minions". We have played them all having a turn and it wasn't awful considering the benefits to the party. As of now, we are using https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#HandlingMobs and it works well too.
This depends on the GM. I do not think it is a good idea to surprise the GM in general. While I personally do not care about surprises or plotlines, some GMs are less free form and have a story that is more planned out.
If you know your GM well and they are okay with surprises, then go ahead and surprise them. If you do not know your GM well, I would run it by them first to make sure that they are okay with it.
In my opinion, I think raising an army pretty much comes with the territory of being a necromancer, so I do not think it is a big deal, but I would run by the GM just in case.
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I believe the point in this case is to take them out of the combat economy altogether and have this minion on minion stuff just happen in the background. Maybe the DM rolls a couple of dice to see how it goes, maybe they just make an executive decision. Either way, all the attention is really on the fight between the PCs and the BBEG (and possibly some of his more prized henchmen).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Thank you. I'll try this method whyle i gradually increase the number of minions in my Power.
Thank you for the insight. I believe that's the best way to run this situation.
It avoids a possibly drawn-out fight that's presumably not supposed to be meaningful in the first place. If the whole encampment is meant to merely be a hindrance, spending more time on it than necessary would be an annoyance.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
It's ok. The gm is a friend and He favors creative thinking and roleplay.
I think if someone had invested significantly into building their characters around using summoned/conjured or created minions, they should have a tangible way to use their abilities. That's just me. The Horde rules I posted aren't hard to use, at all.
There's no RAW simulation of this that makes any practical sense. You could literally play out every zombie and every goblin and roll 10,000 attack rolls to decide it, but that wouldn't be much fun.
Just let the DM determine how to decide the outcome. Maybe they'll have you roll Int check to devise a good battle strategy or a Cha check to inspire the zombies to fight to the undeath. The DM will decide the DC.
Especially because this is a potentially session-breaking piece of powergaming, it's a good idea to leave the DM some discretion about whether it succeeds. It might even be a good idea to give the DM a heads up about your plan, if you think it's possible you can bypass have of what he's prepared for the session. At least let him know you might be cheesing some encounters and he should generally prepare a little extra material if he's able.
I do see your point. No matter how you resolve combat with that many creatures involved, it is time consuming. Our DM uses a lot of creatures in his encounters so, one player that has the same ability doesn't bother our group either. Here is why. The player summons 16 creatures. They are controlled as units of 4 with the Horde rules. The players makes attacks for those creatures and decides his own action on that turn so, five attack resolutions for them. That's is hardly different than me playing my Fighter who has between 5 and 7 attack resolutions on my turn(extra attack, twf bonus action attack, action surge, special reaction attack like riposte or AoO).
TLDR; It really is a question of does it fly in your group. If it does, it's not that difficult to implement. If most of the group hates the idea, I wouldn't consider playing a character built around controlling a ton of minions.