this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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How would you run a 'swarm'? (self.dnd)
submitted 1 year ago by FontMasterFlex to c/dnd
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I've been DMing a small group of new players. They've been literally "hit or miss" with combat. I know at least one is getting frustrated with combat because he can't roll to save his life. I'm planning on throwing a swarm of small creatures at them next session. goblins, spiders, whatever. just small easily killed, easily hit creatures. Thing is I don't want to do 'initiative' per se as I'm considering having a ton of these things. Anyone have any pointers?

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[–] Pronell 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any reason the typical swarm statblocks won't narratively work in such a case?

If you want to homebrew something, maybe make a swarm of x goblins with very low AC, say 3-5, with similar HP. When a character hits, they hit multiple goblins per attack assuming they roll double the given AC. In most hits they'd be taking down at least two or three targets is what I'm envisioning.

Then the swarm reacts after each attack, using x number of the swarm per attack, with maybe three different tiers of attacks available, and each goblin can only go once per round.

As such, as the battle wears on they make fewer and less effective attacks.

But this all recreates what a swarm statblock is to some extent.

[–] FontMasterFlex 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Guess i didn't realize there was an existing stat block. I don't really want to do something like insects though. but yeah, you got the idea on the rest of it. this is pretty much what i was looking for. basically i want to give the on PC that can't hit shit some optimism and start killing a few things instead of the druid that headbutts everything to death. Thank you

[–] Pronell 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Here's a link to one of the basic swarms from the 5e SRD:

Swarm of Zombies

It doesn't have all the features I talked about but it does follow the same concept. It's an abstraction of how a crowd might behave.