I understand it as the damage from all the many bites, scratches, stings, etc. Agreed that using plural bites would make this clearer.
They do describe the attack as "Bites" so it's really my issue rather than theirs
I understand it as the damage from all the many bites, scratches, stings, etc. Agreed that using plural bites would make this clearer.
Splitting the attack in 2 is cool - it lets you have the swarm sweep through the party attacking a couple PCs as it moves. That's a nice touch.
I'd skip the advantage, though. I just don't like making it an always on thing. Pack tactics can be mitigated by the players if they want to bother, which to me seems just a smidge more interesting (tactical even) . . . I'm talking myself into giving the swarm a sort of pack tactics, though, like if two or more swarms join up, them they get advantage.
Torches and lanterns.I have no idea how low level parties survived encounters with swarms in 3.5.
Swarm Trait: Can attack once for each creature in its area.
Well there already is a swarm trait (which is why I came up with the "overwhelming" trait - though that's not been super popular). I like the idea of that, but the swarm of bats is described as "Medium" which doesn't make a ton of sense to me either. It should be large and then a bunched up party could be really harried
In Hoard of the Dragon Queen, there's a combat with two rat swarms for level 1 adventurers. I know many groups have found that challenging.