In the Clawbat entry in PF#33, Ed Greenwood either recommends forming a group of 50-60 Clawbats into a swarm or throwing those 50-60 at the players individually. I certainly hope he meant the former, because managing 50-60 monsters would be hell on a GM.
But if he did mean forming a swarm, how does one go about it with a monster which is meant as a single opponent?
I would look at a similar creature like the bat (familiar) and the bat swarm. Just extrapolate form there.
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Certain tools like software to manage encounters or macro-powered dice rollers could make encounters with that many creatures doable. Even if it's just for you to manage the number crunch, I would recommend Maptool and the Pathfinder campaign framework found in the rptools.net forum. You could easily copy a single claw bat fifty times and select them all. There are macros to manage multiple skill checks andmsaves with a single click, along with attack options. It would take some practice, but I bet a macro could be built to handle multiple attacks from a single creature to simulate the 50 claw bats.
Hell, I am not planning to do an encounter on such a scale. I'd much prefer to get some RP'ing done, rather than spend a whole session battling half a hundred CR 1's.
I was just wondering about the very particular wording Ed chose in the sidebar. Was he really advocating putting up half a hundred individual enemies for an encounter?
I can entertain the idea that I would put 'half a hundred' CR1 creatures into an encounter. As long as your players usually dish out enough damage per hit to take down one of them I don't see the problem. With area of effect spells, it wouldn't take long to knock them out of the sky.
Obviously I wouldn't book-keep all the creatures stats, just keep a tally of how many had been killed. I'd probably run the encounter that if an attack didn't kill one of them outright I wouldn't keep track. In a group of that many creatures the players won't be able to keep track either, and it would be pointless. I'd rather play the encounter for the drama and threat.
The more I think about it, the more I think I might do this very thing!
I can entertain the idea that I would put 'half a hundred' CR1 creatures into an encounter. As long as your players usually dish out enough damage per hit to take down one of them I don't see the problem. With area of effect spells, it wouldn't take long to knock them out of the sky.
Obviously I wouldn't book-keep all the creatures stats, just keep a tally of how many had been killed. I'd probably run the encounter that if an attack didn't kill one of them outright I wouldn't keep track. In a group of that many creatures the players won't be able to keep track either, and it would be pointless. I'd rather play the encounter for the drama and threat.
The more I think about it, the more I think I might do this very thing!
Have fun putting half a hundred minis on the table. ^^
Have fun putting half a hundred minis on the table. ^^
I wouldn't.
I'd probably play most of that encounter without minis. Back to the good old descriptive encounter. Almost nowhere the PCs could stand would be 5 feet or more from one of the nasties, and it'd only ever take a 5-foot step to hit the next one in melee.
Something like that.
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Have fun putting half a hundred minis on the table. ^^I wouldn't.
I'd probably play most of that encounter without minis. Back to the good old descriptive encounter. Almost nowhere the PCs could stand would be 5 feet or more from one of the nasties, and it'd only ever take a 5-foot step to hit the next one in melee.
Something like that.
The advantage of having that many critters is you shouldn't need minis. You can pretty much guarantee there's ALWAYS one there, regardless of the square.
Hm, Clawbats have 11 HP, so I would say it's not even likely that every hit will be one off the board. So, no, too much book-keeping for my taste.
Best way is to apply the Mob template from DMG2. Voila, instant swarm of clawbats :)
That would work, it seems. :) Add the Clawbats special attacks and all is fine.