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Are standard Swarms shapable?
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<blockquote data-quote="DrSpunj" data-source="post: 1500887" data-attributes="member: 994"><p>That's true. It's just that the use of "larger" in the previous sentence leads to believe they are talking about "larger" swarms, but if they did that the grammer would be off.</p><p></p><p>The word swarm is a single unit representation of more than one of its components. A "standard" swarm has a square or cube shape, 10' on a side. A large swarm I have to interpret as "bigger than a standard swarm", meaning two or more standard swarms, especially because of the preceding sentence.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That could be, but when does it take it? When it's alone in the middle of a lifeless plain? What's the point of spelling it out so deliberately if it's never required to take that shape?</p><p></p><p>I'd agree that if the "Unlike other creatures with a 10' space" bit came <em>immediately</em> after the "Swarms are either a square or cube" bit, there'd be no conflict.</p><p></p><p>However, as written, the base form seems to me to be a square or cube. That's made very clear early on and it makes a lot of common sense. I keep picturing the scarab beetles from the Mummy movies, or a horde of rats attacking someone. A large mass of individual creatures crawling over & under each other towards whatever the closest target is. If two targets are close together (5' apart) all the better. But I just can't see a single swarm being intelligent enough to spread itself out into 4 squares in a line to attack two individuals 20' away from each other. They would go after one or the other (first, then after it was dead move towards the other one!).</p><p></p><p>IMO, the rest of the text then goes on to give a couple situations where that's not always the case:</p><p></p><p>1) Because a swarm can fit through a space big enough for any of its component creatures, the squeezing rules normally used for Large creatures don't apply, and it can move in restricted places (like a 5' corridor) by altering its shape to that of 4 contiguous squares.</p><p></p><p>2) If a swarm is larger (meaning more than one standard swarm) it has enough component creatures to be able to spread itself out more, and no longer has to keep itself in a square or cube shape. Here it <em>can</em> pretty easily go after two individuals 20' away from each other and still have enough component creatures to keep its "mob mentality".</p><p></p><p>But if no one else shares this view I'll concede that it'll be a House Rule IMC. I thought about emailing Customer Service but I have no faith in their responses, though "official" they may be. Ditto for Sage advice. Honestly I trust & respect the opinions of those in this Rules Forum far more, especially when they use the RAW to back up their opinions. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> </p><p></p><p>Thanks!</p><p></p><p>DrSpunj</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DrSpunj, post: 1500887, member: 994"] That's true. It's just that the use of "larger" in the previous sentence leads to believe they are talking about "larger" swarms, but if they did that the grammer would be off. The word swarm is a single unit representation of more than one of its components. A "standard" swarm has a square or cube shape, 10' on a side. A large swarm I have to interpret as "bigger than a standard swarm", meaning two or more standard swarms, especially because of the preceding sentence. That could be, but when does it take it? When it's alone in the middle of a lifeless plain? What's the point of spelling it out so deliberately if it's never required to take that shape? I'd agree that if the "Unlike other creatures with a 10' space" bit came [i]immediately[/i] after the "Swarms are either a square or cube" bit, there'd be no conflict. However, as written, the base form seems to me to be a square or cube. That's made very clear early on and it makes a lot of common sense. I keep picturing the scarab beetles from the Mummy movies, or a horde of rats attacking someone. A large mass of individual creatures crawling over & under each other towards whatever the closest target is. If two targets are close together (5' apart) all the better. But I just can't see a single swarm being intelligent enough to spread itself out into 4 squares in a line to attack two individuals 20' away from each other. They would go after one or the other (first, then after it was dead move towards the other one!). IMO, the rest of the text then goes on to give a couple situations where that's not always the case: 1) Because a swarm can fit through a space big enough for any of its component creatures, the squeezing rules normally used for Large creatures don't apply, and it can move in restricted places (like a 5' corridor) by altering its shape to that of 4 contiguous squares. 2) If a swarm is larger (meaning more than one standard swarm) it has enough component creatures to be able to spread itself out more, and no longer has to keep itself in a square or cube shape. Here it [i]can[/i] pretty easily go after two individuals 20' away from each other and still have enough component creatures to keep its "mob mentality". But if no one else shares this view I'll concede that it'll be a House Rule IMC. I thought about emailing Customer Service but I have no faith in their responses, though "official" they may be. Ditto for Sage advice. Honestly I trust & respect the opinions of those in this Rules Forum far more, especially when they use the RAW to back up their opinions. ;) Thanks! DrSpunj [/QUOTE]
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Are standard Swarms shapable?
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