It can be fun to storm PCs with weak enemies but the weak enemies can never hit decent PCs. Anybody have any rules to make it so hordes of smaller creatures like goblins have any chance of hitting higher level PCs.
It can be fun to storm PCs with weak enemies but the weak enemies can never hit decent PCs. Anybody have any rules to make it so hordes of smaller creatures like goblins have any chance of hitting higher level PCs.
Natural 20 is a auto-hit? (and also a crit threat^^)
It can be fun to storm PCs with weak enemies but the weak enemies can never hit decent PCs. Anybody have any rules to make it so hordes of smaller creatures like goblins have any chance of hitting higher level PCs.
Have them buff by a bard, and a cleric, and have them use aid another.
What level range? I got a few ideas for level 4ish creatures.
I was thinking a +1 to hit for every creature attacking. So if 4 goblins were attacking one PC (without flanking) they would get +4 to hit. You could reason that while one or more Gobo is distracting the PC another gets in an opportunistic stab.
make a large swarm of the goblins and give it stats appropriate to the level of difficulty you want it to have.
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I was thinking a +1 to hit for every creature attacking. So if 4 goblins were attacking one PC (without flanking) they would get +4 to hit. You could reason that while one or more Gobo is distracting the PC another gets in an opportunistic stab.
Conan RPG has a similar mechanic for making weak mooks dangerous in large numbers.
IIRC, it went something like:
If multiple allied enemies are attacking a single targer, each consequtive attacker gains a +2 to hit for each of his allies who have already attacked.
So the first guy hits on a +8, second guy hits on a +10, third on a +12, and so on.
Led to more players doing the classic "Conan puts his back against the wall and hacks away" tactic.
Dark heresy had a rule for something like that, I can look it up tomorrow.
The DMG2 (for 3.5) had a mob template you could apply to creatures.
v3.5 has a "Swarmfighting" feat that might be what you're looking for.
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The new Star Wars rule set and 4.0 too I think introduced the idea of minions. These are basically level appropriate monsters who die if hit for only one point of damage. This is easily ported into Pathfinder by taking CR appropriate monsters and letting them die if hit for any damage at all.
In this fashion you have creatures who are threats but still are easily dispatched. If you really want to use a lot of them then use CR-4 as the target point. This way they still hit about 25% of the time so a large group cannot be ignored but they still die so easy.
If you want to use goblins specifically then you can use a higher level monster's hit and damage stats and just say they are goblins.
The DMG2 (for 3.5) had a mob template you could apply to creatures.
Yeah, I was going to point out, also, the mob template is pretty good for something like that.
Dark heresy had "gang up", which meant that if you outnumbered the enemies in melee combat 2 to 1, you gained a small bonus, and if you outnumbered them 3 to 1 you gained a greater bonus. I would say a +1-+2, or +2-+4 bonus.
The new Star Wars rule set and 4.0 too I think introduced the idea of minions. These are basically level appropriate monsters who die if hit for only one point of damage. This is easily ported into Pathfinder by taking CR appropriate monsters and letting them die if hit for any damage at all.
In this fashion you have creatures who are threats but still are easily dispatched. If you really want to use a lot of them then use CR-4 as the target point. This way they still hit about 25% of the time so a large group cannot be ignored but they still die so easy.
I have tried two ways of doing this. One is in the quote above. The other, I tried making an amorphous pool of dice on the grid that puddled around (a horde of zombies). I combined swarm rules with zombie stats, and determined that X damage would remove Y dice from the swarm. Obviously you can see where this caused problems. We only used this mechanic for one encounter (it was an in-campaign homebrew playtest, and it was frustrating but enlightening).
The most effective thing we've found is the 1 HP mooks. I generally lower their AC, as well, but only by a point or two, just to ensure that they are dealt with in a relatively easy manner. Of course, I let them roll damage normally, and if they roll exceptionally low, I let the mook stay another round just to let the players think they're actually fighting. Can't let them know it's supposed to be easy.
EDIT: Just looked up the Mob template. It's pretty good, too. Probably requires more work prior to the encounter, though. I can't say if it would be any more rewarding or not just from looking.