Two Tools for Mass Combat– Mobs and the Red Shirt Save

Mass combat can mean one of two things: regular combat with the norma rules in which larger groups of weaker enemies are treated as a single unit (usually called mobs), or larger battles on a larger scale (both in terms of space and time), using a different set of rules to simulate military-style battles.

This article is about the first of those scenarios.  If your players are going to be leading thirty villagers in a fight against fifty bandits or something like that, here's how you do that.  Here's a simple system for running mobs, as well as a special rule you can use to let player characters, BBEG's and other important people benefit from having a squad of mooks under their command

OSR Mob Rules

A bunch of identical, or at least similar combatants can be combined into a mob.  A mob has the following qualities.

• Its hit points are the sum total of the hit points of all its members.  Every time it loses a number of hit points equal to one member, it loses a member.  Or you could interpret this as several people being wounded and the mob loses the equivalent combat effectiveness of one member since it's unrealistic that people would get wounded one at a time.  But the point is, if a mob of ten bandits with 8 HP each loses 8 HP, it's treated mechanically as being down to nine bandits.  
• The space it takes up is equal to at most what its members would take up individually, and at least half that.  So the ten bandits take up five to ten 5x5 dungeon tiles.  Mob members can stand closer together without penalty.  The shape of the mob can be whatever it needs to be.  
• If the mob is hit by an AoE like a fireball, roll damage once and multiply it by however many members would realistically be hit.  
• In larger battles, morale rolls might be made for individual mobs rather than the whole side.  Mobs make morale rolls based on losses in the mob itself– so when they lose a member, a leader, and half their members.  Any morale rolls made due to losses of allies from outside the mob are made with advantage; mob members primarily draw courage from the people immediately around them.  
• When a mob is "killed," that means all members are incapacitated, not necessarily dead. 
• If a mob is in close formation, ranged attacks against it have advantage.  
• If anyone is in melee combat with a mob, the whole mob has disadvantage on ranged attacks, even members not personally in melee contact with the enemy.  

Mobs generally attack as a group when possible.  Instead of rolling dice for mob attacks, cross-reference the number of members in the mob with the raw d20 roll needed to hit to see how many members hit.  If they have advantage, subtract 4 from the number needed to hit; if they have disadvantage, add 4.  

So if ten bandits with +1 to hit attacked a character with AC 16, they'd need to roll a 15, so they'd hit 3 times.  You can roll damage for every hit, but if it's more than 2 or 3 you probably just want to roll once and multiply by the number of hits.  

If it's a zero, roll a d20; on a natural 20 one person hits, but not critically even if you otherwise use critical hits.  

Any enemy inside the mob gets attacked from all sides, with advantage, by as many people can reach them.  Usually that means as many as eight people.

The Red Shirt Save

If a player character, BBEG or some other important person is leading a mob, you might want to simulate the chance that an attack aimed at them hits one of the mooks instead.  The red shirt save is the simplest way to do that.  

Count up how many mooks are close enough to take the hit for the character.  Generally that means they have to be within 5 feet in any direction, or directly between the target and attacker.  Usually there won't be more than 5-10 who qualify unless you have a huge mob and aren't leading from the front.  

When the named character gets "hit" by an attack, roll a d20.  If the number rolled is equal to or lower than the number of mooks close enough to take the hit, one of them gets hit instead.  

Named characters should still attack and act separately from a mob even if they're leading it, since they'll presumably have totally different stats, attack bonuses, AC, damage, etc.  Let any player who's leading a mob control it and roll for it though. 

Piecemeal Armor as Damage Reduction

I've mentioned before that I want my upcoming game to use armor as damage reduction. Here's an update on that.

So for a post-apocalyptic system, piecemeal armor is, if not essential, then at least something you'd really want to have at least for flavor purposes.  Mechanics aside, the imagery of someone wearing hockey pads covered in spikes, an old army helmet, and greaves made of scrap metal really sets a good post-apocalyptic tone.

It took me a while to figure this out but I think I basically have it now.

To recap– armor follows a step die system.  When you're hit, you roll your armor die and subtract the number rolled from the damage.  Except, ones count as zero (meaning the attack found a gap in your armor), and twos do as well if you don't have a helmet or other head protection.

Armor Values for Full Suits of Armor

One thing that helped me figure this out was starting at the end and working backwards– that is, figuring out what I wanted the armor value for a full set of armor to be and working backward from there to build the piecemeal system.  

What I decided on was d4 for light armor, d6 for medium and d8 for heavy– for medieval armor.  For armor made of modern materials, the die sizes would be one higher, so d6/d8/d10, and for futuristic materials they'd be two die sizes higher, so d8/d10/d12.  

Once I had that I could figure out what the value of the individual pieces should be– covering your whole body with medieval-quality steel should be worth d8, covering most of it with leather d4, and so on.  

The Different Types of Armor Pieces

I really want to be able to model a wide range of armor qualities, so for the sake of this system there are six types of material armor can be made out of.

Light archaic– leather, padded or hide

Heavy archaic– Iron or steel

Light modern– Kevlar or other ballistic fibers, or modern plastic

Heavy modern– Modern steel or titanium alloys, or ballistic ceramics

Light futuristic– Aerogel, genetically engineered spider silk, smart impact gel, etc.

Heavy futuristic– Liquid metal, smart steel, adamantium or whatever

All three heavy materials are equally heavy, as are all three light materials.  Modern light is as strong as archaic heavy, and futuristic light is as strong as modern heavy, so there are essentially four levels of protection they can provide.  

To be clear, armor pieces made of heavy materials usually contain a mix of heavy and light materials.  Like, a breastplate has a padded underlayer under it.  If an armor piece is made of a mix of materials, it generally counts as heavy material.  

Another clarification– modern includes stuff that's coming out in the next couple decades.  Futuristic means far off enough that we can't be sure what it will look like.  

Armor pieces could cover any portion of your body, but as a guideline I'll use five default body parts:

Torso (waist up to to shoulders)

Head and face

Arms and hands

Legs and feet

Hips and groin

So five body parts, six materials, so thirty possibilities.  Each piece of armor has a point value based on what it's made of and what part of your body it covers.

Add up the value of all the armor you're wearing, without rounding anything.  Obviously these are guidelines and you could have like a vest that doesn't cover the shoulders, or a vambrace on only one arm, so use these as guidelines but made adjustments on a case by case basis.  

Your armor die is the biggest die whose highest possible value is lower than your total armor score.  A few examples:

If you're wearing medieval plate mail, your armor score will be 8– the total of the entire "heavy archaic" column– so you roll a d8.   

If you're wearing modern military armor with a steel (modern alloy) and kevlar helmet, kevlar vest with steel plate inserts, and kevlar pads (no plates) over your hips, groin and upper thighs, along with knee and elbow pads, and maybe a really thin kevlar shirt, that's 4 for the heavy modern torso item, 2.5 for the heavy modern helmet, and 1 for the light modern hip/groin protection.  The knee and elbow pads don't cover the whole arms and legs so they're not worth 1 each, but they have to be worth at least .25 each when you add them to the shirt, so this whole getup gives you 8, maybe 8.5 armor points– so a d8 again.  

Now a real post-apocalyptic example.  Suppose you're wearing the following:

A football helmet with a big spike on top

Steel-toed, thick leather boots 

Soccer shinguards

A kevlar vest with scrap metal plates inserted into it

Plastic elbow and knee pads from a skate shop

A genetically-engineered spider silk long-sleeved shirt, thin and breathable

Fingerless leather gloves

A chainmail speedo

You're a true wastelander in that getup! Instead of doing this by item, I'll do it by body region.  

Torso– the spider silk shirt is light futuristic material, but so thin it doesn't add much.  Call that .25.  The kevlar vest would be worth 3, and with the plates it's designed for it would be worth 4.  With plates of scrap metal, let's call it 3.25.  So 3.5 total for the torso.  

Head– the football helmet is light modern material, so it's worth 2.

Arms– Fingerless gloves don't do much for you.  The long-sleeved shirt covers your entire arms but is a bit thin to really be armor, while the elbow pads are sturdy but don't cover much.  Light modern arm coverage would be worth 1, and this is maybe half that so call it .5.

Legs and feet– The steel-toed boots are basically archaic light material.  Knee pads are light modern, as are the shinguards.  Overall maybe half the leg and foot area is covered, at best.  Full coverage with light modern material would be worth 1, so let's call this another .5

Hips and groin– A chainmail speedo is heavy archaic material.  While undeniably stylish, it covers barely half this region.  So, another .5.  

So 3.5, plus 2, plus .5, .5, and .5.  That's 7 total, so this person's armor value is a d6, and because they have a helmet, twos count.  

Armor and Encumbrance

This depends on your encumbrance system.  I like the ones where you get a number of encumbrance slots equal to your strength score, more or less.  For one of those I'd say the following:

Torso coverage made of heavy material is 2 encumbrance slots

Torso pieces made of light material take 1 encumbrance slot

Other pieces made of heavy material take 1 encumbrance slot

Other pieces made of light material take half a slot  

So a full suit of heavy material armor takes six encumbrance slots– a lot, but totally doable.  

Armor Special Qualities

Armor can have special qualities other than raw damage reduction.  A few possibilities:

Full coverage: ones actually count as one because there are no gaps in the armor.  Thinner points, but not total gaps.

Damage resistance: Halve all damage of a particular type, like a bomb suit halves explosive/fire/shrapnel damage.

Environmentally sealed: this armor has its own internal air supply and you're immune to gas, pathogens, or bugs crawling into your armor, as long as you use it.

Damage vulnerability– There's a particular type of damage this armor doesn't work against, like if it's all metal then it does nothing against lightning.  

Spiked– This armor has spikes on it which can be used as daggers.  You automatically make a spike attack against anyone you grapple.  

Most of these would probably require a full set of armor to work, other than the spikes.  

Armor Degradation

I really want to have this in my game, but I haven't come up with a way of doing this that I love.  I want a method that's fast and also realistic.  I'll circle back around to this later, but I'm also open to suggestions.  

Races Re-Imagined: Dwarves

So there are three approaches to handling non-human player races that are common in OSR games.

First, there's race-as-class.  That makes non-humans seem exotic, but it also portrays all of them as monolithic and stereotyped, like all elves do magic, all dwarves are warriors, and all halflings are like more specialized thieves.

Second, there's race and class.  That allows players a lot more options and races are no longer monolithic, but they usually end up not feeling exotic at all, being differentiated by a few stat bonus and maybe a minor special ability.  Also certain race/class combinations are almost always clearly optimal, like half-orc warriors, halfling rogues, etc.

Third, there's race and class as class.  I've only seen this in Adventurer, Conqueror King, actually.  Basically you have two or more racial classes for every race, like dwarf warsmith versus dwarf battle-priest, etc.  This keeps races exotic while providing options, but it's more work while still allowing players fewer options than race and class.  Also, racial classes generally end up being either variants of human classes, or blends of two of them, because there are only so many niches a class can fill.

There are other options like the build your own racial heritage thing from The Nightmares Underneath's Nameless Grimoire, but generally it's either those three or humans only.

So here's my pick: race and class, but make the races way more unique and not clearly an ideal match for one specific class.

Criteria for making races more interesting:

1- No ability score bonuses or penalties.  A +1 bonus to one ability score modifier- independent of the ability score itself- is alright in some cases as long as, when combined with their other stuff, it doesn't clearly gear them towards one specific class.

2- Give them 1-3 special things, but don't just make them better at one class's thing, i.e. no bonus to damage, plus bonus to soaking damage, etc.

Stuff like nightvision is good because it's broadly useful for all classes- albeit better for rogues and rangers, and albeit too many races have it in newer editions.  Situational stuff or stuff with drawbacks is good too, like thermographic vision but you can't read or see textures with it.

3- Give them one thing that keeps getting stronger over time, so race stays relevant as you level up just like class does.

4- Give them some kind of inhuman biology that makes them seem alien.

5- Make their society really different from human society, at least partly based on their different biology.

6- Try to rationalize whatever tropes the race is fitting into, especially if it's an established race like elves or hobbits.  For instance, give dwarves a reason why they're so obsessed with mining.

Alright, so dwarves.  I've re-written them, much like I did for trolls and dragons. 

Dwarven Biology

Dwarves mostly look like you'd imagine, except maybe not quite as short.  Four and a half to five feet tall, very stout, the males are mostly bearded and even some of the women are.  They're generally slower and hardier than humans.  Their lifespans vary a lot.  They mostly live underground.  They love ale.  

The big unique thing about dwarves is that they eat gold.  Or drink it sometimes.  

Not just gold.  They mostly eat food.  And ale.  But gold is a vital part of their diet.  Without it they won't die, but they won't be very healthy either.  

The more gold dwarves habitually consume, the healthier, stronger, and better-looking they become.  Consuming gold causes dwarves to become tougher, more resistant to poison, and enhances their ability to see in the dark.  Enough gold and a dwarf develops the ability to sense vibrations in stone.

Also, they need gold to be sexually fertile. Dwarves who consume no gold at all can't have kids.  

Gold consumption eventually shows in a dwarf's appearance.  Their eyes take on a gold sheen.  Their facial hair– including both beards and eyebrows– eventually acquire a slight gold lustre, in extreme cases looking like 

Dwarven Society

Due to their unique biology, you can generally tell how wealthy a dwarf is at a glance.  Between that and the fact that dwarves need to at least not be poor to reproduce, dwarven society is intensely classist.  

Dwarves who can't afford to include at least a little bit of gold in their diet are treated as pariahs.  Dwarves of a higher class are accorded automatic respect by their inferiors. All dwarven societies, other than maybe a few isolated communes, are what sociologists would call high power distance cultures.  

A dwarf is not considered marriagable until they consume enough gold to be sexually fertile.  Unlike in human cultures, identifying them as such is as simple as looking into their eyes.  

Dwarves are obsessed with gold because having more gold is the primary determinant of not only success, but individual worth in their society.  Many is the dwarf who decides to, in the words of 50 Cent, get rich or die trying.  

Dwarven society runs on gold.  Lying about the purity of gold is a serious crime, often punishable by death, mutilation or exile.  Making jewelry or artwork out of gold is the ultimate form of conspicuous consumption.  

Dwarven eyes and beards, as mentioned, show a dwarf's socioeconomic class.  Underclass dwarves are also known as beardless.  Higher-class dwarves grow out their beards to display not only their social class, but how long they've been in it.  Dwarves who become wealthier often trim their beards to hide their past poverty, while those who fall on hard times may braid or style their beards to subtly obscure more recent growth.  

You can tell much about a dwarf's history by their beard.  Dying one's beard gold is a grave social offense– sometimes even illegal– but many do it anyway.  Potions of beard growth are highly sought after by the newly rich.  

Many of the changes wrought by gold consumption, such as thermographic vision and stonesense, have the net effect of making dwarves more suited for life deep underground.  Dwarven cities thus tend to have the wealthier districts deeper underground.  Dwarven throne rooms are laid out like amphitheaters with the throne sitting below the audience. 

This tendency to view lower as better seeps into dwarven languages and thought patterns.  They think of their gods as living underground and the devils in the sky.  Phrases like "high and mighty" are inverted to "low and mighty," and military leaders are the "deep command" rather than the "high command." The rich are the "lower class," or perhaps the "deeper class."  Org charts show the leader on the bottom and workers on top.  

Dwarf Stats

Dwarves are medium-sized, being shorter than humans but about as heavy.

They are about one-third slower over short distances than humans.  If humans move 30 feet per round, dwarves move 20.  However, they are less bothered by heavy loads– encumbered dwarves move as fast as if they were one encumbrance level lower.  

Alcohol is sort of healthy for dwarves.  They get drunk like anyone else, but only suffer half the penalties and it takes twice as much to get hangovers or alcohol poisoning.  They also don't suffer long-term harm such as liver damage from it, and can metabolize alcohol for energy just as well as carbohydrates.  They can't live completely off of alcohol– they need protein, fats, vitamins and minerals– but it can effectively substitute for bread or other carbohydrate sources.

Dwarven characters start out with a small metal file that they use to shave down gold coins for consumption.  Gold is generally shaved into flakes which are mixed with beverages.  It can be sprinkled on food, usually confections, but that tends to be reserved for the lower class (meaning the wealthy, remember).  

Gold Consumption

If you consume no gold, your hair is brittle, your eyes dull, and your skin sallow. You look sickly.  You are sexually infertile, can't get married and probably have no libido.  You get -1 to reaction rolls from other dwarves, other than fellow beardless. Your CON modifier is one lower for all purposes; if CON doesn't already affect hit points in the system you're using then you get one less hit point per level.  This is applied retroactively whenever you change social class, not permanently as you level up.  

If you consume the equivalent of one gold coin per month, you no longer suffer any of those penalties, and you can get laid/married now.  Your eyes and beard start to show flecks of gold– dwarves will notice it, but other races usually won't.  Your vision extends into the infrared range, but this is usually only good for about 30 feet before it starts to get blurry.  

At one gold coin per week, the gold in your hair and eyes may be noticeable to humans who look closely, and is clearly reflective in bright light.  You get +1 to reaction rolls with other dwarves of a higher (that is, worse) social class.  You also gain advantage on saves against poison, and your CON modifier is treated as one higher.  If CON doesn't affect hit points in your system, you get an extra hit point per level as if it did.  

Consume a gold coin per day, and your eyes and beard may glitter in all but complete darkness.  Your infrared vision now extends out to sixty feet, and if you gently lay your beard against stone, you can feel vibrations through the stone, detecting moving creatures up to 30-120 feet away depending on size.  After attaining this social class, this stonesense takes three months to become active since your beard has to grow out for it to work.  

If you're extremely wealthy, you can consume five gold coins a day.  Your thermographic vision extends to 150 feet, and you get +2 to reaction rolls with dwarves of a higher (again, less wealthy) social class.  Your vision within the visible spectrum also becomes more sensitive, allowing you to read normally in very dim light.  However, you become blinded by bright sunlight.  Your hair and irises look like they're made of gold, and will brightly reflect any amount of light.

Kings and magnates sometimes consume more gold than that, but it's just to show off.  Note that gold is typically consumed daily in small amounts, not once a week/month.  Changes in gold consumption level take about a month to take effect, both visually and in terms of game stats.

Note that the specific gold numbers will have to be adjusted based on how common gold is in your game, and whether you're using a gold or silver standard.  As a very rough guideline, starting PCs should be beardless, the "one gold a month" level should be affordable by level 2 at the latest, and further social class advances should become affordable every 2-3 levels depending on how much of your money you want to eat.  Obviously this also depends on your XP system, how much money players earn through means that don't count for XP, etc.