Your experiences with Creeping Doom

[Pielorinho]

In 3.0, I believe, Creeping Doom was the super-nasty spell. Didn't it do 1,000 points of damage or something, spread out among opponents? It was a battle-ender of a spell.

The new edition is much less nasty: you summon between 6 and 10 swarms of centipedes, which you can command to move with a standard action. The augment summoning feat does not increase their damage, but it does increase the DC on their poison and their Distraction ability (as both abilities are Con-based).

I'm wondering whether folks have either used this spell or had it used against them, and what their experiences with it were. A major advantage of it is that it's a multi-battle spell: lasting 1 min/level, the swarms can sweep ahead of the party in a dungeon.

A major disadvantage is that the damage is pitiful: 2d6/round is nothing.

In addition to the general question, I have a more specific question. From the SRD:

Swarm Attack: Creatures with the swarm subtype don’t make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed.

Since swarms aren't (I think) limited to half actions, they should be able to take a move and a standard action each round. They should also be able to take a move action in place of a standard action. Does this mean that a swarm can attack twice per round, by taking two move actions?

If so, could a druid use this capability? "As a standard action, you can command any number of the swarms to move toward any prey within 100 feet of you." Could you carefully judge things so that after 20' of movement your centipedes were hanging out atop one enemy, and then after another 20' of movement were atop another enemy?

If so, is that something that should be houseruled away?

Daniel

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

By the RAW, probably. But personally I don't that was the intent b/c you're potentially doubling the damage output of something that doesn't even have to bother making attack rolls. If you were to take two move actions to actually move, I would probably rule that it's the last move action that provokes damage (especially since that's the movement that causes the swarm to be sitting on the target for a full round). If passing through an occupied space as part of a move action doesn't cause damage, then why should passing through an occupied space as part of two move actions cause damage?

As for previous editions (2E and earlier), creeping doom was too good. It almost never got used in our games b/c it was an insta-kill spell with little hope of survival. Talk about a fun-breaker. :\

 

[Pielorinho]

By the RAW, probably. But personally I don't that was the intent b/c you're potentially doubling the damage output of something that doesn't even have to bother making attack rolls.

That was pretty much my thinking: it seems cheesy to me. On the other hand, I've never used the spell, because it seems really weak compared to firestorm, heal, windwalk, or summoning a greater elemental. Unless I'm missing a way in which it's really good, it just doesn't seem worth the bother.

It does seem as though it'd be pretty nice against wizards, who even at high levels might fail one or more of the saves as often as a quarter of the time, and who would hate to be making concentration checks for every spell. But then again, firestorm is really nice against wizards, too.

Daniel

 

[Sejs]

Yeah, they kinda swung too far in the other direction on Creeping Doom. It used to be far too good, now it's far too weak.

 

[Slobber Monster]

If the Wizard is flying (likely) then he's not even a valid target.

Would you rather have your Wizard caught in a Creeping Doom or a Black Tentacles from a 13th level caster? That's a DC 15 Fort save to avoid nausea (assuming Augment Summoning) and a 10+2d6 Concetration check to cast anything, vs. an opposed grapple check against a grapple modifier of +21 and a Concentration DC of 20 + SL to cast if grappled.

When you get it Creeping Doom gives 6 x CR 4 creatures (EL 9) for 13 minutes, vs. Summon Monster VII which gives one CR 5-7 monster for 13 rounds. Against a large group of lower CR opponents it does have the potential to dish out quite a bit of damage every round - just not enough to take out any single opponent. An EL 14 Hill Giant raiding party contains 9 Hill Giants and 4 Dire Wolves. The 6 swarms have a total of 24 spaces, so the could potentially damage all 13 of the opponents for 26d6 damage per round. Arranged properly they can discourage the giants from flanking the party fighters or from hanging back and throwing rocks.

The question I have is whether to count the damage from mutliple swarms occupying different squares of a Large creature's base. Let's say you have a hill giant standing in the midst of four swarms like so:

SSSS
SHHS
SHHS
SSSS

Does the Hill Giant take 2d6 damage from each swarm on their turns, for a total of 8d6 damage? If so, then what about against a single swarm that occupies all of his squares. That should still be 2d6 by the RAW, but does this make sense?

Edit: One more a thought.

Because swarms are shapeable, a creature with a 20' base - a Purple Worm let's say - could share its base with 13 swarms, for 26d6 damage per round. A Purple Worm only moves 20 ft. so it wouldn't even be able to escape. You average Purple Worm would only last three rounds against this.

 

[Pielorinho]

WOw, that's an interesting idea, SM. If a swarm does its damage to each square within its area, that makes them a lot nastier and more interesting: they become much better to use against large creatures than against small creatures. I'm pretty sure that's not how they're supposed to work, but I still like the idea a lot.

Another question: can multiple swarms fill the same square, and if so, does their damage stack? Sure, they'd hurt each other, but if I could do 4d6 damage to each swarm and 6d6 damage +6 saves +6 concentration checks to each enemy in that 10' square, it might be worth it.

Daniel

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I have always played it as such:

1) A swarm deals its damage to a creature whose space it ends its move in: This means that a Large creature trapped in all four squares of a swarm only takes the damage once.

2) A swarm can enter the square of any sized creature: This means swarms can overlap and as seperate creatures would each deal damage.

3) DM Common Sense: One swarm of the the same type normally won't attack another swarm of the same type. Otherwise a swarm would kill itself as the cannibalistic little vermin devoured each other.

So, 6 centipede swarms could be sicced on one opponent causing 12d6 damage plus 12 poison and nausea saves. Not 1,000 points of damage like the old days, but still not bad.

 

[Slobber Monster]

OK, looking at the SRD some more has just confused me:

In order to attack, a single swarm moves into opponents’ spaces, which provokes an attack of opportunity. It can occupy the same space as a creature of any size, since it crawls all over its prey, but remains a creature with a 10-foot space. Swarms never make attacks of opportunity, but they can provoke attacks of opportunity.

I believe this means that it can attack multiple smaller opponents - it moves into all of their spaces at once. It can also explicitely attack large creatures by moving into their spaces, but can it move partially into their spaces? I'm tending to say no - it must move its entire space into the target's space.

This still leaves the question of how many swarms can attack a larger creature. Even if they can't overlap, you can still have multiple swarms on a huge or larger creature via shaping.

Two swarms on a 15' space creature:
112
112
222

Four swarms on a 20' space creature:
1122
1122
3344
3344

But still, why _wouldn't_ they be allowed to overlap? I can't think of any reason, except that maybe they would deal damage to each other.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The swarms don't overlap because the swarms would be crowded in that overlap. They essentially refuse to pack in less space or crawl over each other; the exception is that they will crawl over things that they need to kill, hence targets do not count for against the overlap.

As far as multiple swarms, IMO it would require multiple entire swarms to cover the target's base. Which means a 20' base (400sf) could be mobbed by 4 Large swarms with 10' bases (100sf) taking 8d6 damage each round.

 

[Stalker0]

One of the powers of the swarm is that they both hinder the opponent and do damage. Their grapple checks are pretty good, so even if your fighting Mr. Awesome NPC he can still get grappled by the insects. And there's also the distraction and poison saves. Combine that with the fact he could have AC 200000 and he still takes 2d6 every round and its not a bad spell.

Sure its not the best damage dealer, but its something the enemy has to deal with every round and it can really tie up an enemy for several rounds.