The internet has been debating whether 100 men could beat a single gorilla in unarmed combat, but Dungeons & Dragons has had the answer for years. One of the latest widespread internet memes involves whether 100 average people could beat a gorilla in 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&D rules have long provided the answer.
A recent Reddit post by Aselunar opened the debate while framing both the gorilla and people in D&D terms. A gorilla has a CR of 3 based on Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition rules, while the 100 men are represented by the CR 0 commoners' statblock. Redditors quickly agreed that, using Dungeons & Dragons' rules, the commoners would clearly win. "Action economy dictates that the 100 commoners would win," said Pinkalink23. "The Gorilla probably might not even get a turn," added ItsTinyPickleRick.
The key to remember is that D&D has an action economy that 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%...
