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<blockquote data-quote="DrSpunj" data-source="post: 1499497" data-attributes="member: 994">Our DM, Nail, threw three bird swarms at us last week (nuthatches, I guess). Having looked at the Swarm rules myself for my own game only a week or two before, I was surprised to see him maneuver the Swarms into several tetris-like configurations to attack the greatest number of PCs each round. There were 1x4 lines, L's, S's, T's, whatever.We've been having a discussion about whether the RAW support his position. Here are the relevant bits of text, IMO, from the 3.5 SRD entry for the Swarm Subtype:Under the Swarm heading there are similar paragraphs before all the individual swarm entries. They are nearly identical to the Swarm Subtype entry above but do include this extra bit under the Combat section:The SPACE entry for each Swarm statblock also lists 10'. He contends that the last paragraph of bolded text I quoted means he's free to make tetris-like swarms.I believe that the &quot;normal&quot; configuration for a swarm is a 10' space (cube if flying like the birds) and that the text he's pointing to is only relevant when something limits the swarm from taking that shape (like when moving through and/or fighting you in a 5'-wide corridor, for instance) [EDIT: and to explain that the Squeezing rules for Larger creatures don't apply to Swarms.]I think we both agree that large swarms are shapable, but while I've got everyone weighing in on this I'd like to hear what that exactly means to everybody. If you make a larger swarm by combining 4 smaller ones, you'd end up with a 20' space (16 squares). Since the text says it's shapable, would you move it into a 1x16 square configuration to attack two PCs that are 75' apart? What kind of limits are sensible here?Thanks!DrSpunj</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DrSpunj, post: 1499497, member: 994"] Our DM, [b]Nail[/b], threw three bird swarms at us last week (nuthatches, I guess). Having looked at the Swarm rules myself for my own game only a week or two before, I was surprised to see him maneuver the Swarms into several tetris-like configurations to attack the greatest number of PCs each round. There were 1x4 lines, L's, S's, T's, whatever. We've been having a discussion about whether the RAW support his position. Here are the relevant bits of text, IMO, from the 3.5 SRD entry for the Swarm Subtype: Under the Swarm heading there are similar paragraphs before all the individual swarm entries. They are nearly identical to the Swarm Subtype entry above but do include this extra bit under the Combat section: The SPACE entry for each Swarm statblock also lists 10'. He contends that the last paragraph of bolded text I quoted means he's free to make tetris-like swarms. I believe that the "normal" configuration for a swarm is a 10' space (cube if flying like the birds) and that the text he's pointing to is only relevant when something limits the swarm from taking that shape (like when moving through and/or fighting you in a 5'-wide corridor, for instance) [EDIT: and to explain that the Squeezing rules for Larger creatures don't apply to Swarms.] I think we both agree that large swarms are shapable, but while I've got everyone weighing in on this I'd like to hear what that exactly means to everybody. If you make a larger swarm by combining 4 smaller ones, you'd end up with a 20' space (16 squares). Since the text says it's shapable, would you move it into a 1x16 square configuration to attack two PCs that are 75' apart? What kind of limits are sensible here? Thanks! DrSpunj [/QUOTE]

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