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About a week ago, I ran into a blog making a really good point - why not use large-scale swarms of humans / humanoids as military units. I took this idea and ran with it, but i'm pretty **** at monster-building, and right now, these things are giant blocks of clunky text. If someone had the patience to help me refine this idea, that would be great. Think of the possibilities - a score of town guards deployed to aid a group of adventures fight on the battle field, or the barbarian and wizard decicating one hundred tightly packed foes to clear a way for the cavalry...

 

"Formation" doesn't really do much for the units, and it's even more work to keep track of. I'd nix the trait myself. Give it All Around Vision instead.

As swarms, they should have the typical "Swarm" trait.

"Relentless" is good, but it's wording needs some refinement. Try the following; "The unit cannot be marked or knocked prone. It also cannot bedazed, weakened or stunned from a melee or ranged power." There is no need to mention the forced movement details in Relentless because that detail is natural to all creatures with the Swarm keyword anyways.

If the only action the defeated soldier takes is to drop its weapon and either flee or surrender, why give it an attack at all? I would also cut this line out from the "Scatter" trait, since it's mostly DM fiat what the defeated soldiers would do anyways.

The Archer's should have a close blast attack for front line volleys.

The Swordsmen should have a trample sort of attack to simulate a frontal mob charge.

All of their attacks need to be specified by their usage (At Will, Recharge or Encounter). Most of the attacks should be at will. The above mentioned trample attack for thr Swordsmen should be a recharge power with a recharge of 4.

Hope this helps. Happy Gaming

Thanks, ToeSama.
Ok, here's what I've got now. Any more suggestions, anyone? Some help with the wording for Wallbreaker would be nice, as well as a bit of rebalancing.



Defeated soldier remains the same.

Very nice work on those two powers

Dec 25, 2012 -- 9:30PM, ToeSama wrote:

Very nice work on those two powers

Thank you!

And now, dwarves.

            

I don't know if my blog is the one to which you refer, but you might find some ideas at Piecework Armies.  Generally, I just take the Adversarial Army and replace the Heroic Effort power with that race's racial power.  Good luck!

Aha! So that's where I saw them. Ty, wrecan, but there's a really simple reason I can't use these. My pcs never have the patience to hit level 11, or level 9, even. I want to use these creatures in actual play.
Also, I'm a reasonably inexperienced dm, and those have... Too many traits and too much complexity for me to handle...
Thank you, though. I appreciate it, really.

Dec 26, 2012 -- 1:47PM, TaalVastal wrote:

Aha! So that's where I saw them. Ty, wrecan, but there's a really simple reason I can't use these. My pcs never have the patience to hit level 11, or level 9, even. I want to use these creatures in actual play.
Also, I'm a reasonably inexperienced dm, and those have... Too many traits and too much complexity for me to handle...
Thank you, though. I appreciate it, really.

Yeah, I've always found that half my players are not at all into the 'wargaming' sort of aspect of battles. You could try doing a more abstract sort of battle. Have armies and mass units and such just be backdrop. The PCs can fight smaller individual actions and/or engage in skill challenges to win larger fights. The whole thing could be one monster skill challenge and some of the successes could come from for instance beating the goblins sneaking through the culvert into the castle, etc. You could then use a swarm or two if you really want, but it becomes more of a special situation kind of thing instead of a whole game table load of mass army units to handle.

Dec 26, 2012 -- 1:47PM, TaalVastal wrote:

Aha! So that's where I saw them. Ty, wrecan, but there's a really simple reason I can't use these. My pcs never have the patience to hit level 11, or level 9, even. I want to use these creatures in actual play. Also, I'm a reasonably inexperienced dm, and those have... Too many traits and too much complexity for me to handle... Thank you, though. I appreciate it, really.

No problem!  I'm not going to try to dissuade you from the idea that Pieceowrk creatures are complex. I think they are pretty easy to run, but each to his own.

Good luck with the battle.  I like your stat blocks!