The internet has been debating whether 100 men could beat a single gorilla in unarmed combat, butDungeons & Dragonshas had the answer for years. One of the latest widespread internet memes involves whether 100 average peoplecould beat a gorillain combat. While people have used everything from crowd psychology to animal science to explain whether a crowd of people could truly beat a gorilla,D&Drules have long provided the answer.
A recent Reddit post byAselunaropened the debate while framing both the gorilla and people inD&Dterms. A gorilla has a CR of 3 based onDungeons & Dragons5th Edition rules, while the 100 men are represented by the CR 0 commoners' statblock. Redditors quickly agreed that, usingDungeons & Dragons' rules,the commoners would clearly win. “Action economy dictates that the 100 commoners would win,” saidPinkalink23. “The Gorilla probably might not even get a turn,” addedItsTinyPickleRick.
D&D Answers The 100 People Vs. 1 Gorilla Question Using 5e Rules
The Action Economy Heavily Favors 100 People Based On 5E Rules
The key to remember is thatD&Dhasan action economythat heavily favors the side that can take more actions. While a gorilla can consistently kill two commoners per turn, 100 commoners have 100 attacks, each of which will hit an average of 55% of the time. Althoughthe gorilla would likely kill at least a dozen commoners or more, the sheer disparity of attacks per round stacks up on the side of the commoners.
Of course, the gorilla does have a few advantages that might keep it alive for more than a couple of rounds.Its Frightening Display ability would likely frighten the majority of the commonerssurrounding it, imposing disadvantage on attacks made against it. The commoners also have to deal with coordinating their movement so that they could clear space for other commoners to make an attack. However, even with these effects, a group of about 15 commoners would still ultimately prevail against a gorilla based solely onMonster Manualstatblocks.
Our Take: Dungeons & Dragons Mirrors Real Life
In This Case, Dungeons & Dragons Logic Makes A Lot Of Sense
D&Disn’t intended to be an exact mirror of real life, but it does a pretty good job of definitively ending the argument of gorilla versus mob of humans. While a group of people might be demoralized after watching one of their own get crushed to death by a gorilla,D&Dremoves some of the psychology by reminding people that there would need to be a good reason for 100 people to fight a gorillain the first place.
The action economy ofD&Dmight not be the perfect way to represent every scenario, but this is one instance where it makes a lot of sense.Dungeons & Dragonsrather accurately gets the action economy of a fight correct, proving that 2 gorilla fists can’t overtake the sheer damage that 100 motivated people would inflict.
