Adjust this up or down depending on the circumstances. Assume one in four creatures in the horde succeed on their saving throws.Determine how many creatures are in the area of effect.When the horde is hit with an area of effect like turn undead, hypnotic pattern, or fireball, adjudicate the results with these guidelines: If someone casts shield or has a crazy high AC, remove a couple of successful attacks. Adjust this up or down depending on circumstances. If they have disadvantage, assume they all fail. If the horde has advantage, assume half succeed. When the horde attacks, assume one in four attacks succeed.When in doubt, divide attacks equally among those characters the horde can reasonably attack. Determine how many monsters in the horde attack a given character based on the circumstances of the battle.When the damage tally takes enough to kill one or more monsters in the horde, remove those monsters, reset the tally to zero, and carry over extra damage.Round it to the nearest 5 or 10 to make the math easier. Write down the hit points of a single monster in the horde to keep track of it.Track damage inflicted to the horde instead of individual monsters in a single damage tally.It breaks down into three large parts: tracking the damage done to the horde, tracking the horde's attacks and damage, and adjudicating areas of effect. Here's a summary of my preferred techniques for running hordes. It focuses on the fiction of the situation instead of getting bogged down in mechanics.It still treats members of a horde as separate monsters when it matters to the players.It scales to any number of monsters we can imagine.It doesn't take much more time than running smaller numbers of monsters.You can do the math mostly in your head.In this article we focus on one particular method for running hordes. You may have your own preference while other DMs have theirs. Some use tables, others you can do in your head. They all require some level of abstraction from our standard combat rules. There are many imperfect ways to run huge hordes of monsters in D&D-situations in which the characters face twenty or more monsters in a single battle. We can, with a little work, run any number of monsters against the characters.

Our stories need not be limited by these mechanics. This is why characters have a huge advantage against a single opponent. The mechanics of D&D combat generally presumes the characters will face somewhere between three and twelve bad guys in any given battle. And we all remember the seven samurai facing off against fifty town-ravaging bandits. We all remember John Wick facing off against a whole club of eastern European thugs. We all remember Aragorn standing alone atop the ruined tower facing a horde of urukai in Lord of the Rings. These are the tales of high adventure we know and love.

Our heroes stand atop a cliff of ice, a thousand foot drop behind them and twenty five wights in front, their eyes blazing blue and their black blades ready. The stout warrior cleaves into them, slicing off four heads in two vicious cuts. Our heroes stand atop the ruins of an elven watchtower, blades and spells ready as forty orcs charge in. The cleric holds her holy symbol aloft and waves of radiant energy tear through the skeletons, shattering dozens of the creatures before the rest roar in.

The heroes stand atop a mountain of bones with one hundred skeletons swarming in. If the damage done by an area of effect is close to a single monster's hit points, remove the monsters if they fail the saving throw.ДЇor a video on this topic, see my Running Hoards Youtube video. Huge areas like circle of death hit thirty two. Small areas hit four, medium areas like thunder wave or burning hands hit eight, large areas like fireball or turn undead hit sixteen.

Adjudicate areas of effect by assuming lots of members of the horde are caught in the area.

Increase this to half if the monsters have advantage or one in ten if they have disadvantage.

Whenever the monsters attack or must make a saving throw, assume one quarter succeeds and round up or down depending on the sitation.

Round monster hit points to the nearest 5 or 10 to make the math easier. Any time that tally is higher than the hit points of a single monster, remove a monster.

Tally damage done to any member of the horde in a single tally.

This article offers a simple system for running dozens to hundreds of monsters in your D&D battles. New to Sly Flourish? Start Here! Running Hordes: The Lazy Way to Run Lots of D&D Monsters

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