Troop Subtype and Melee enemies?

[Vritra]

So, I've been running Rappan Athuk, and have found that (at least some) of the encounters throw the PCs against large groups of enemies, (an example being a nest of spiders that ended up being 17 versus 6.)

I was wondering if other GMs had experience working with these kinds of encounters, and whether adjusting them so that they functioned as a Troop would work better, due to less time needed for me to resolve the enemies' turn? Or are there other ideas that can help with running these?

EDIT: Is there anything else to run large groups of enemies quickly?

[tkul]

I don't know how well this would work for your situation but I've used the setup below to do small unit skirmishes in games where you have war like setups.

Each unit consists of 5-20 creatures with the identical build and equipment
HP: Total HP of all creatures in the unit combined
AC: The AC of a single individual in the unit +1/2 the number of creatures in the unit
Attack: The appropriate attack bonus of a single unit in the +1/2 the number of creatures in the unit
Damage: Per weapon or attack mode of a single creature in the unit + strength mod * number of creatures in the unit
Saves: Per individual in the unit
Special: Cannot be Flanked

Damage is spread evenly so the unit doesn't actually shrink or take any penalties until it runs out of HP with the exception of any single attack that does enough damage to kill a member of the unit outright.

This mimics the unit fighting as a whole. Generally speaking 10 people can't hit the same guy which is why they're not throwing 10d8+1 damage every round but they're all basically aiding the attacks and defense of one active combatant and milling around. The rule about one shotting guys out just accounts for lucky hits breaching their formation and mimics their squad slowly shrinking and getting outnumbered.

So for a unit of 10 City Guards (Human Warrior 2 w/ Longsword & Scale Mail) it would look like this -
HP: 130
AC: 20
Attack: +9
Damage: 1d8+10
Saves: Fort +3 Ref +0 Will +1

Any attack that deals 13 damage applies a -1 Damage. Ever two stacks of this penalty reduces AC by 1.

[Vritra]

So how do you really resolve the attacks with that system?

Do you find that working with only one attack is frustrating? I think that this wouldn't work quite as well... maybe?

[Imbicatus]

I just have all the enemies share the same initiative roll. It's not really realistic, but I handwave that they are all delaying until the lowest initiative roll on their side in order to act as a unit. It saves time and makes keeping track of turns easier.

[Vritra]

I already do that. Makes it easy on me to keep track, but it still takes forever for the 10+ creatures to all resolve their attacks, even when I have a good idea of the party's respective ACs.

[tkul]

With my system yes you do the attacks. In that case the guards only get one attack per round. Now when you have a unit of say Ogres then it gets a little speedier. The things to remember is that even with the example I used, the units are likely to one shot each other a few time, the average damage per attack is 14.5 and they have a about a 45% chance to hit every swing.

[tkul]

it also makes a lot of little mooks actually a challenge for a high level character. A 10th level fighter can usually be sporting a 25+ AC and is swinging twice a round for well over 13 damage a swing, meaning he kills 2 enemies every round assuming he has no way to get more attacks. If you pile all those enemies into one "creature" you end up being able to tie up PCs a little better with them and make them actually a threat. 14.5 damage isn't going to overwhelm a higher level PC but it's enough that you have to pay attention to the thing that's doing it if they're doing it often enough