FATEwiki - Mook Combat

Any sort of campaign is going to have battles against mooks (minions, faceless hordes), the swarm of several-to-several-dozen bad guys, eminently expendible but still necessary to overcome. They're a staple in any action flick, and so most heroes are going run into them sooner or later.

There are a three basic ways you can deal with them in game context. Which way you choose may vary with the actual situation (a preliminary battle before you ever get into the Fortress of Nastiness may call for a different result than the climactic battle of a several-session module), but whatever you choose should be based on the Golden Rule Of FATE.

1. Mooks are People, Too

Mooks are low-level opponents, subject to the same rules and abilities and constraints as the characters (or the more major villains). Never count anyone out. Heroes will struggle against all foes, at least for a while.

These sorts of mooks get treated the same as any other individual -- same Wounds Table, same combat advantages/disadvantages, tactical involvement in exchanges, etc. Almost certainly you'll end up having to handle many-on-many exchanges, etc. (see One-on-Many Combat, Many-on-Many Combat, Superior Numbers, Exchange Combat Example).

Pros:

Grim, gritty, realistic (if that's what you're aiming for). They're no pushovers, really.
Can handle strange nuances and details (by using the rest of the rules).
Individual tactical efforts by the players (or GM) come into play. Each exchange will be very specific set of actions.

Cons:

Time-consuming battles, probably for not much dramatic return. Why spend a lot of time and die-rolling on an extra? Does Bond struggle for five minutes with every thug and SPECTRE mook? Of course not -- he gets into the big fights with the real villains and their high-level henchfolk.
Resource-consuming battles The Good Guys will likely spend a lot of Aspects, consumable weapons, etc.

2. Mooks as Cardboard Targets

Set 'em up, and knock 'em down. Mooks are not only low-level opponents, they're simply easier to take out. Sure, you can still see each individual, and deal with them individually, but it's a lot faster and easier to do so.

One way to do this is to modify the Wounds Table for them -- either in box quantity (e.g., just 1 Clip, 1 Hurt, 1 Injured) or in the MoS needed to do things.

Pros:

As above, but faster.

Cons:

Still time-consuming.

3. The Mook-Mass

When we say faceless hordes, we mean faceless hordes. They're so faceless, they're treated (in this option) as a collective indvidual.

Pros:

A lot faster, a lot less resource-intensive.
Dramatically closer to how such things go in the movies.

Cons:

A lot more difficult to map out on a battle map.
More abstract, and thus more bothersome to folks who like realism.

There are a few ways to do this, but basically it means that the mooks are grouped into one (or more) clusters of bad guys, rolling collectively, and getting taken out collectively. [1]

First off, you'll probably want to revise the Wounds Table into a special Mook Group Challenge Track.

MoS	Result	Ladder	Description	Effect
0	Battered	[][]	Group is shaken, but still cohesive.	No effect.
1	Light Casualties	[][]	One or two drop or are injured in some critical fashion, requiring the group to rework their coordination.	-1 to next roll.
2-4	Casualties	[][]	The group loses a small, but significant, portion of their force.	-1 to rolls for the rest of the fight, or until reinforcements arrive.
5-6	Heavy Casualties	[][]	Much of the group is injured or down or out.	-1 to rolls for the rest of the fight (each box cumulative).
7+	Decimated	X	All members of the group are routed, injured and unable to fight, or killed.	The group cannot continue to combat.

Fred Hicks notes: I like having my cumulatives add up to -4, so I'd probably just stick with two boxes per level (other than Decimation, which only gets one), but I could also see going for 1/1/1/3/1 instead, on the idea that the smaller casualties can stack up quicker.

Another player suggests a damage track for mook squads that might include more descriptive elements: [2]

Rifleman down (-1 to next action)
Machinegunner down (-1 to all actions in scene)
Team leader down (-1 for awhile)
Squad taken out

So what do you do with this?

A hunk o' burnin' mooks

You simply treat that mooks as a big individual (equivalent to a PC), fighting all against all the Good Guys. Both sides describe their tactics/goals, and then the Good Guys roll, and the GM rolls a single roll for the mooks.

If the mooks beat everyone else, they hit the Good Guy target of choice (or as was specified by the GM), most likely the one against which they managed the highest MoS. Hey, it could happen.
If the mooks are beaten by anyone, then each of the winning Good Guys does damage against the wound table above. (As if it were a single individual.) And, yes, that can mow down lots of mooks "quickly" (game time, though you can narrate it however you wish).

What about Superior Numbers questions? The suggestion is to leave them out -- the PCs obviously can't "outnumber" the horde/gang/platoon/whatever of mooks (until they've taken major casualties, which is then already factored in). But the mooks' superior numbers is already factored in the other way -- they can take mass damage in a way that individuals couldn't, and, being mooks, it's not like they're going to be very good at coordinated attacks anyway. On the other hand, the Flanking Opponent and Surrounding Opponent advantages are available to either side. [3]

Multiple hunks

If the tactical situation allows it, you could have different groups of mooks split up and go against individual Good Guys or other goals. "One group tries to hold you at the bridge, while the others head for the reactor controls." "One group tries to pin you down, while the rest try to shoot the President." "Most of them engage with the main group, but some of the split off when they see you trying to flank them." Etc.

You can even just say that there's a group of mooks allocated to each PC, if you want a fight with a little duration in it. Or you can group the mooks by ability -- the big mass of mediocre mooks, the smaller cadre of elite mooks, etc. Whatever dramatically works.

Each group of mooks gets its own damage table/challenge track, as above. The rest occurs as noted above.

Can groups combine again? Whatver makes sense. If they do, think about averaging out their status (and, if you're feeling mean, giving them a Light Casualty for the next round as they regroup). If a group of mooks splits, do the same. Exercise reasonable GM judgment, while not overanalyzing the abstraction.

Mixed bags

This arrangement works just fine with additional folks in the mix. For example, the villain's henchman who's leading the mix would be a separate individual. Conversely, Our Heroes might have the support of the Castle Guard in going up against the powerful wizard; they would be treated as mooks (on Our Heroes' side). And, as suggested above, you could have various Mook-Mobs (or teams or squads) of varying purpose, ability, etc.

Doing damage

As noted above, the default in FATE is for each of the winning Good Guys to do damage to the mooks -- call that "multi-result." You can also, if you want a slower setup or it fits the feel of the game, do a "single-result" -- if three Good Guys won over the mooks, only the best winner gets to apply damage.

Fred Hicks notes: [4]

Note, you can mix this stuff up to taste -- and you don't have to be fair. A game where the PCs are difficult to harm and can face down armies might have a single-result philosophy applied to attacks that succeed against PCs, but a multi-result philosophy against NPCs. A Hong Kong game might have a single-result philosophy (so named guys and PCs can have a protracted shootout) but the poor mook mobs might get the multi-result. And finally, a Cthulhu game might operate under the rule that monsters only take single-result pain while all others (i.e., humans and thus PCs) face multi-result.

Combat Rules