D&D Monster Design Breakthrough: Hordes

5e D&D does a lot of things well. Unfortunately, handling encounters with massive hordes of enemies is not one of those things. As an efficient solution, I present here: monster hordes.
Patreon (July 2023 newsletter has the zombie horde): / esperthebard
Esper's Emporium of Esoterica: esperthebard.com/shop
Discord: / discord
Instagram@esper_the_bard
Facebook: / esper-the-bard-6459470...
Preorder Monstrous Heroes: monstrous-heroes-5e-monster-c...

[@dandrive3249]

With the host of Angels religious experience. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has had a similar moment like that. It’s so strange and powerful. One of my favorite things about D&d is how you can use those experiences and learn from them.

[@raytheerudite5252]

Excellent, I’ve been using hordes for years and after a lot of playing around with the mechanics it looks a lot like these. Your Horde stat blocks are definitely tight though.

[@bobfrancis123]

My party is currently invading a plane in hell, so this horde mechanics episode are perfect timing! I can unleash a horde of Lemures on them!

[@esperthebard]

That would be cool, maybe a CR 3 horde of lemures. I'm actually tempted to make that.

[@TwoKnowingRavens]

This is great stuff Esper, you're one of the best resources I've ever found for practical and inventive ways of designing adventures and creatures. Love it!

[@neonate6211]

Two Resources would go well with this: Swarms of The Multiverse. Kobold Press Book of Blades: Warfare.

[@robotdude2206]

Came back to this video today for guidance when I started playing around with a construct horde idea I had. Great stuff as usual. 👍

[@rachdarastrix5251]

Criminal: Definition, someone who survives against all odds. Someone who defended their home, family, possessions, someone who went on the counter offensive to do so, hunted to keep them fed when no one wanted them alive. A monster and a horde of monsters is but a perfection of the evolution of this wisdom.

[@X-R-T-C]

A life-saver of a video! You have NO IDEA how many times I've tried to make a super epic battle with dozens of enemies and the party cleaving through them and it ended up being slow and sluggish and really NOT what I had thought.....

[@Gargantupimp]

4:20 EPIC! Dude you really help us see the glory of DnD. It's truly a gift and we should take it seriously as you do.

[@Vezon2121]

Huh thats a really cool way to do hordes. I might try to apply this! Thanks for the template it'd really well thought out!

[@ericdodd1209]

Perhaps that could be a good next project, "espers book of hord mechanics, creatures and mobs" 😎👍

[@alexeisenhauer5874]

14:07 I’d really like to hear more about the difference zombies and ghouls.

[@spadeofpain24]

now to have this reviewed by players familiar with fighting minions based on 4th edition. your horde will still be better for army scale scene. little initiative order bloat and good target practice for army buster spells from the higher levels.

[@jeffreyneas9510]

Good, solid information.

[@nachschub4836]

Yeah I love the Horde creatures, I once ran the Hord Mist creatures from the EEE and it was a very cool and memorable fight.

[@loganfrandrup6590]

I actually gave the Emporium to a friend of mine and I can tell he is going to love a majority of the monsters, espsially the undead ones where they would fit very nicely a his vairation of The Drej(flesh and mind warped undead with magical abilietes that act like a hive mind) I was already hyped to play as a Kobold Paragon in the next campaign, now with these tips, I honestly want to see what happens if I pitted them against one of these hords at higher levels to make it feel more epic, like a Pack of Werecreatures or a Malitia of Dwarves, heck maybe even do something odd like a Band of Satyers. Now that I say that you could even have an ally Hord that you can assist in fighting another large Hord force. I do agree that the Mob attacks is nice and it works, but it ends up being really number crunchy and you really need to prep ahead for it, but this makes it so much more stream lined.

[@SkyDragon90]

I'm basically homebrewing Rise of Tiamat and this might be a good way to make the Cultists of the Dragon more threatening, or any faction they ally themselves with. Definitely keeping this idea in my pocket, thanks, Esper!

[@rachdarastrix5251]

Are you a Silver Dragon?

[@SkyDragon90]

@@rachdarastrix5251 My PFP is the Silver Dragon art from the 5E Monster Manual. They're my favorite dragon. Ever.

[@rachdarastrix5251]

@@SkyDragon90 I've tried 5E, couldn't understand it, got sick of how little I could do about getting hit. So I tried 3.5E. Easier to understand, more actual skill involved.

[@orangexlightning]

This is very helpful! I'm currently DMing a campaign that's all about war and there's bound to be at least 4 Lord of the Rings Scale battles, featuring Orcs, Goblinoids, and Draconians.This is going to be a big help for conveying things of that scale.

[@BDTMack]

Really cool and unique way to run hordes! I'm already planning on using MCDM's minion mechanic to run a horde of gnolls in an upcoming session. With MCDM's minions you know the exact amount of minions in a horde and have to track how many are left, but it's made easier by the fact that each minion dies if it takes any amount of damage from an attack or from a failed a saving throw. The horde can make one group attack that has a higher to-hit bonus the more minions are in the horde, so you don't have to roll for every minion. MCDM's minion rules are free in their Flee, Mortals! Preview that you can download from their website. I'd say both MCDM's and Esper's method of running hordes are good and have different advantages. Esper's hordes would have easier-to-track HP and positioning would be more straightforward because a horde only uses one token. Whereas MCDM's are a bit crunchier and would work better if the players wanted to know exactly how many creatures they killed and when, like Legolas and Gimli counting the orcs they felled.

[@bloodbarage]

I like the concept of rank and file from fantasy incorporated into hordes. Ideally, the horde wouldn’t be all hitting at once so having a frontline of 5-6 makes a lot of sense. Then once they drop below that number of opponents then it drops their attacks.

[@samuelbroad11]

clever approach to game design, abstracting the stats to encompass the results you desire. Brilliant. I think Lovecraft's ghouls were dog-faced? Remember when elves were immune to ghoul paralysis, nice. No elves with Lovecraft though!

[@hawkname1234]

I have been doing something quite similar for a few years. Works well. One thing that I added was Vulnerability to area affects.

[@toxacokami7216]

This is very similar to what I was already doing. Thanks for making it better. Tell Warsor hi for me

[@kevinsmith9013]

love the angels and the spell that conjures them! keep going, but ditch the limits of 5e... soon, soon enough...

[@cascadianone]

Nice vid, good info.

[@RaysHobbies]

I miss playing and running games. I started playing around 91 with 2e but overall 3.5 was my love. Good times, hopefully after i find a new job ill be able to find a group

[@sw33n3yto00]

I think the modern concept of ghoul/zombie was done in the early thirties. Bela Lugosi worked on a film called White Zombie in 1932 or '33.

[@dontyodelsohard2456]

In Pathfinder 1e there is something similar. I think they call it a Troop. It is... Okay. I don't think it works quite as well as the Swarm subtype they have but, you know, you are already entering homebrew so tweaks are fine at that point. It is something not too many people know about, I reckon as it is in the end of the 6th Pathfinder Bestiary. What I like most about this iteration though is this: The shape of the Troop can actually change as long as it still takes up a 20-foot by 20-foot square (or more if the component creatures are larger)... Which, you know, it might bring into question how one might manage to kill (or as they say disperse) the Troop if you just keep wailing on one single part of the Troop if for some reason it gets stuck marching down a narrow hall. Now, this would mean you end up using 16 indvidual tokens to represent the hoard... But I think that would add to the effect if you actually had something akin to minatures and not just placeholder markers.

[@WouldUKindly47]

More of this. As a dm myself improving on the mechanics of the game for my players is something I do all the time. I’ve been trying to think up good horde rules for months!

[@Zeliek]

As a Pathfinder 2 DM, I highly advise you check how we do "Swarms" and "Troops"(Or have a friend try and explain it quickly without needing to learn our rules. Or do! PF2 is fun!). Long story short those creatures attack and the players roll Reflex(Dex) saves to half the damage. It's a bit of yours and a bit of 5e.

[@snakept69]

This is similar to my swarm rules: "The swarm can occupy another creature's space and vice versa, and the swarm can move through any opening large enough for a singular entity of the group. Swarms have Resistance to single target damage. They are vulnerable to AOE damage that encompasses the entire swarm. Swarms are immune to Charm, Frightened, Grappled, Paralysed, Petrified, Prone, Restrained, Stunned from non-AOE effects that don't engulf at least half the swarm, they have advantage on such saves if the effect doesn't fully cover the swarm. At half or lower Hit Points the swarm does half the damage dice on attacks." Then again I add cleave attack to melee martials, at least on certain weapons. And I recommend every DM do the same. Have a lot of fun with those so will defenitely try your variant.

[@LordDany]

the zombies iv done later dont have the undead fortitude as the5e zombie, cause i think that it can cut the imersion of combat specialy later on while your hitting the same single lucky zombie that just doenst die, so im just making them have a Undead Resilience that works alike but instead of con save for being alive its a number of uses per day,

[@raff3486]

great vid

[@micahvaughan8623]

Hey man, this might be a bit outside the topic here, but your comment on your vision really caught my attention. I just read an incredible book by Diana Walsh Pasulka called Encounters. If you’re curious about diving deeper into the nature of these kinds of experiences, I recommend it. Great video :) Looking to run a horde for my new campaign and this was super helpful. Never done zombies in my 10 years of DMing.

[@purpleslushie]

This couldn't have come at a better time. I was about to set up an encounter with like 100 zombies. Horde sounds way more manageable.

[@esperthebard]

5 or 6 zombie hordes would be about the same as 100 zombies, and a hundred times easier to run as a GM. Enjoy the adventure!

[@purpleslushie]

@@esperthebard absolutely. Thank you. It shall be grand.

[@Xplora213]

I like automatic hits, based on the meta of the hit points and armour class just being an abstraction. At some point, it’s impossible for one character to be swamped by 30 people at once. Anyone who has been at the bottom of a pile of people knows it’s going to hurt. But… it’s also fair to out hard limits on that damage. 30 people can’t tackle you at once. Maybe 5 can. I really dislike the 5e swarm for hordes because insects can bite you a hundred times but goblins can’t even if they want to.

[@ryanflorian2047]

astral projection ties traveler to cords of silver so I was thinking what if an astral cord when severed turns the travelers into a new monster instead of just killing them the monster could be used like a horde lost souls bound together in a tangled web by a single silver astral cord you can rule it as if the cord itself is being attacked and not the individual travelers binding them together like this would also make good use of this horde rule plus I don't think we have any astral monsters for the astral plane

[@LordDany]

i love monsters i will se the video and se if i can take some ideas and tricks to make my giant worms worse by adding extra monsters and one of them being a horde hehe =) i have been using as you said all of them individualy wich for those are not a problem since they are simple monsters that only move and bite, but it becomes a roll mess because of their parasite bite feauture hehe

[@HiopX]

The only thing that feels weird about this is that a single Sneak Attack could do more damage to a blob of 25 zombies than completely covering everyone of these with a fireball. So narratively you want to use AOE against them conflicts a bit with the mechanics of only having one hit point pool. The only thing I can come with is a damage boost for AOE depending of how much overlay the AOE and the horde token have, which goes against streamlining combat. Maybe simply horde as damage vulnerability to AOE damage, if they are 100% covered by it?

[@j.dallsop9466]

I've been looking for a way to run regiments/hordes would love to see the template for it

[@bobbyhill4482]

So I’m running Lost Mines a Phandelver as my first game ever as DM. I’m wanting to add one more level for people to multi class with. This video has inspired me to do an attack on Phandelver. If I was to make a horde of goblins, what CR level should it be?

[@avengingblowfish9653]

So if Hypnotic pattern covers half the horde, the entire horde is affected by it with only a single saving throw? Also, when I homebrew swarms, I always give them vulnerability to AoE damage. I feel the same should apply to hordes.

[@geoffreyperrin4347]

What happens with fireball? Does the hoard take the damage as a single creature, or double to represent multiple individual creatures within?

[@loganmcgee18]

This is just my $.02 regarding the "off" feeling described as being "automatically" hit during horde encounters... I mean. Yeah, *mechanically*, that is what's happening. Still, I would say any "bad" feeling a player has about being hit every round during a horde encounter is the fault of the D.M. They have poorly narrated or otherwise let the player(s) be aware of the situation. Yeah, you're getting hit Every. Round. It's a HORDE attacking you... What are you Neo? To think a player would somehow feel that there should be a possibility they go through rounds completely unscathed from their sheer Dexterity... come on... Then they are not imagining or understanding what it means to be attacked by a horde of creatures. Anyways, love the video, and wanted to share how I feel about that subject.

[@internetcatfish]

I'd recommend you incorporate some form of maneuvering mechanics for more intelligent hordes. I remember playing a Pathfinder session where we were controlling different units in an army. Each unit had different maneuvers that were included in the stat blocks as if they were special abilities. For example, a group of medium infantry with pikes could form up and set their pikes against an incoming rush, similarly to how pikemen would brace against a cavalry charge in real life. A group of archers could cohesively shoot a volley of arrows that mechanically works the same as an AoE spell attack. I don't see why you couldn't have a list of similar maneuvers for hordes to use that have weapon and skill requirements. It makes sense to me to set it up like that, since there is a reasonable expectation to be able to train any group of sentient beings how to perform basic maneuvers as long as you are willing to take the time to do it.

[@esperthebard]

That could definitely work! Just one thing about real world battles though, calvary rarely if ever would charge into pikes. That is a quick way to get your men and horses skewered to death.

[@internetcatfish]

@@esperthebard I understand that. I was giving an example of an effective, common sense real world tactic. You have the pikemen as a defense against cavalry charges.

[@yungminiwheat1406]

A couple more horde ideas: Bloodthirsty Brigade. A horde of chaotic humanoids eager to spill the blood of their enemies. This can be a generalized horde for savage humanoids such as gnolls, orcs, berserkers, etc. They make more attacks depending on how many they’ve hit in the previous round and are more likely to score critical hits. Infantry. A horde of lawful humanoids, soldiers trained to fight in tight formations. Their discipline allows them greater chances to evade aoes and frightening effects. Riders. A regiment of mounted cavalry with high speed, evasive maneuvers, and operates on hit-and-run tactics. After moving some distance, they can subject the party to devastating damage from lances and trampling.

[@1.wagner841]

My man gets religious experiences concerning game design... maybe i'm not playing enough DND

[@redfaux74]

In a one vs five fight..... (common sense says you're going to lose) .... the penalty to the one, to hit and its AC should be dramatic. You simply cannot defend well against those who are behind you, above you, (potentially below) or to your sides WHILE trying to attack those in front of you. At the same time, the five should have dramatic bonuses to hit the one while defending against him should be much easier. I used a cumulative +/-2 for each one above one. The five would get a plus 16 to hit the one. (0, +2, +4, +8, +16). Each would receive that +16 bonus unless one of them were defeated, then each receives +8 and so on. The one would have a penalty of -16 to hit these 5 opponents. The logic simply is, if you get in this position you'll likely die without some extreme extenuating circumstances. I did have a combat skill called Multiple Attackers that halved those penalties. But a group of five people with that skill would negate it if you had it also. The players in my game actually liked this when they found out they could use it against others (if they could surround them). I did run an OP game tho. Every bonus you could get.... you tried to.

[@kevinsmith9013]

Omg! How crazy, the rules in 5e aren't equal across scales of play? Imagine if a rule set included and accounted for both individual and wargaming scales of play based off size and skill investiture on the part of an individual to operate seamlessly across play without any band aid rules... lol, soon, very soon...

[@6million1]

Just say you took drugs

[@HenriFaust]

Hordes are one step forward and two steps back. Trying to copy the trashmobs used to pad out the gameplay length of poorly designed video games is boring for the players and tedious for the DM, even with special mechanics. It's also unrealistic both in and out of universe. Both should be a sign that you're doing something wrong in designing your encounters. Unless characters are completely immune to enemy attacks, they should simply get mobbed in the style of zombie flicks when they charge into large groups of comparatively sized enemies instead of dealing with groups of enemies in an intelligent manner. If characters can't break free and run in a few rounds, they should proceed directly to being captured and stripped of their items, or being helplessly beaten to death by the mob, just like in real life. On the other hand, if players somehow become immune to enemies' attacks, in nearly all cases the enemies should see that their attacks do nothing after a few rounds and then flee. This encourages roleplay and creative strategies and discourages metagaming, roll-play, and other bad habits.

[@scetchmonkey007]

I've been using my own personal horde template similar to this for years now. but mine is better, my hordes are vulnerable to fireball damage.. since it is a group of creatures with one, it has specific rules for dealing with status effects and the like. mine gets more attacks the more creatures that are engaged with it. My horde are assumed to be 10-12 creatures at a time, you never labeled exactly how many creatures are in a horde and that matters on how you worded your effects. when the horde is destroyed a few of these creature survive it being destroyed and stand up to fight as individuals. As cool as all this was I got away from using my horde templates, especially on creatures like fiends and angels, as it was more interesting to fight a dozen singular mid tier creatures than it was for me to drop one horde of them. Only when I needed multiple hordes like 50 goblins or zombies, did I have the need to bring back the horde template