Can a swarm be grabbed?

[vic20]

For a several months, I was running a West Marches style 4E game with up to 11 different players at a time, some of which had multiple characters.

How many rounds of combat did you end up getting through?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I emailed WotC CS because Aegeri vehemently claimed that those of us who followed the normal rules for the Grab attack on powers that allowed you to "grab the target" were, in his words, "confused" on the way it worked.

Unfortunately, Customer Service isn't a very good source for rules questions. Alas, they aren't given much support. They are given a database of rules and commonly asked questions. Otherwise, they are just people like you or me reading the descriptions from their copy of the PHB and interpreting the same as everyone else.

Even Living Forgotten Realms stopped allowed Customer Service to be a Primary Rules Source. In other words, if your DM and Customer Service disagree on how a rule should work at an official LFR event, the DM wins. This is because even WOTC doesn't have a huge amount of faith in their responses.

I've gotten all sorts of weird answers from them before. One even told me that shifting still provoked opportunity attacks.

Grab states, "You can attempt to grab a creature that is smaller than you, the same size category as you, or one category larger than you."

That's what the PHB entry on Grab says. It's likely that Customer Service isn't reading from the Rules Compendium yet, which has a much clearer entry on grab. WOTC has said that one of the primary reasons for printing the Rules Compendium was to clarify rules that were too easily misread. This appears to be one of them.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Having actually played a brawling fighter that encountered a swarm (the Mul in Dark Sun Encounters), I feel that this is all a storm in a teacup. Sure, the Mul could have grabbed the damn swarm, but it had a damaging aura, which made that a pretty stupid idea. It doesn't make sense that a humanoid could grab a swarm of rats or bugs. It also doesn't make any tactical sense for the humanoid to do that, in many cases, so it balances out.

I played that same encounter. It made perfect tactical sense for me. If I could grab it, then i was the ONLY one in the damaging aura, not any of my allies. Since I wasn't able to grab it, it often moved to a location where it caught 2 or 3 of us in the aura. And almost every round, it would move away from me before attacking anyone else so that I couldn't get my fighter attack in.

If it had worked like I wanted to, the fight would have been significantly easier. Instead, we barely survived.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

snip

And still this is page 42, not gabbing.

You can use the rules for grab as a guideline and allow the bard to make charisma vs will checks instead of strength vs. reflex...

Actually when i think about that, grab should not be a hard and fast rule, but should instead be a fitting ability check vs an appropriate defense... rule 42 ftw.

 

[Ryujin]

Do remember that in addition to those 20 powers you mention...the players probably all have one item power and one racial power each.

And, also, during that experience level you probably fought 12-20 different monsters that all had multiple powers as well.

As a GM...you really DON'T get too familiar with all the players powers. You are too busy trying to keep your monsters powers straight during each battle.

DS

And as a player I found it difficult to keep track of all of our Ranger's powers that sounded similar; Thunder Tusk Boar Bear Claw Cunning Evasion of Doom.

 

[P1NBACK]

How many rounds of combat did you end up getting through?

They didn't all play at the same time. We'd do parties of 4-5 and rotate players in. We played 1-3 times per week. Players would "party-up" with other characters in their same level range (1-4, 2-5, 3-6, 4-7, etc...). When you reached 5th level you got a second character.

It was a persistent sandbox. So if one party did something, it had a lasting effect on the other characters.

I would run a West Marches style game again, but not with 4th Edition. The combat just lasts too long.

 

[vic20]

They didn't all play at the same time. We'd do parties of 4-5 and rotate players in. We played 1-3 times per week. Players would "party-up" with other characters in their same level range (1-4, 2-5, 3-6, 4-7, etc...). When you reached 5th level you got a second character.

It was a persistent sandbox. So if one party did something, it had a lasting effect on the other characters.

I would run a West Marches style game again, but not with 4th Edition. The combat just lasts too long.

That sounds like a ton of fun!

 

[P1NBACK]

That sounds like a ton of fun!

It was! We even had a forum set up for "in-character" town banter. One character, a kobold paladin of bahamut, actually organized a party to defeat this red dragon who had a group of kobolds following him. The kobolds that remained were converted (during a skill challenge we roleplayed on the forums) and basically became a new settlement dedicated to bahamut.

But, man, after like 4-5 months of DMing 1-3 times per week, I got SUPER burnt out.

Now, I just DM a monthly Dark Sun campaign and play in an Apocalypse World game.