Mobs and Brutes











4 thoughts on “Mobs and Brutes”

  1. Several other systems also use this rule. Exalted calls these weak enemies “Extras”, and I believe Feng Shui also has rules for them.

    In my experience, these rules are good for when you want to add that cinematic flair you mentioned but also want the Brutes/Extras/Mobs to provide some form of challenge. A straightforward combat encounter against a gang of brutes usually isn’t interesting on its own, as you said. It’s also obvious to the PCs when an opponent is a brute and when it’s a named villain – are you facing a generic stormtropper, or Darth Vader?

    Brutes become more “tactically” interesting when you pair them up with more significant opponents, because they can coordinate to make each other more dangerous and force the group to split their attention. That’s especially true if there are large number of brutes around. Your PCs might be capable of trivially slicing through six of Richelieu’s guards, but a platoon of 30 of them led by their villanous captain and his two cruel lieutenants is a much more serious challenge.

    Another way to make them interesting is to place them as obstacles in the way of some other objective. Going back to Star Wars, the protagonists could deal with small groups of Stormtroopers just fine while inside the Death Star… but there was an effectively infinite number of them in there, so not only it was impossible to take them all on in combat, if they wasted too much time on it Vader would catch up. So the actual goal there was to reach their ship and escape, with each combat encounter cutting into the time they had to do so.

  2. Not every combat needs to be a serious challenge. A romp is a combat that allows the characters to show off and prove how buff they are. Especially in Feng Shui and 7th Sea mook bashing is an art form. You don’t just say “I’m going to take out 2 mooks” and roll the dice. The point of the exercise is to do it with style. “I’m going to slice one mook’s head clean off and as it flys from his shoulders I will use my sword as a bat sending the head into another mook and knocking him off a ledge.” That’s proper Feng Shui. Similarly in 7th Sea this is the players chance to swashbuckle.

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