Excerpt: Swarms

[One Horse town]

One question that springs to mind. Why aren't Minions swarms? That would cut down on the paperwork a bit. Instead of keeping count of 10 guys with 1 or 5 hit points (or whatever), they are counted as one creature for combat purposes. As exception based design seems to be in, it would be easy to give each 'minion swarm' rules relating to their make-up. Goblin swarms, zombie swarms, etc.

Not saying it's better or worse - just that this could have been an alternative route taken to simulate larger groups of weak monsters. I wonder if it was considered at all.

 

[Klaus]

I read the article introduction. I read the description of swarms.

They are different from the 3.5 swarms how, exactly?

- Large whole composed of smaller creatures? Check.
- Deals damage to all creatures within their area? Check.
- Difficult to kill with regular weapons? Check.
- Special effects based on the creature? Check.

The only new things are:
- Immunity to forced movement (makes sense since forced movement is a big part of 4e combat).
- Size reduced from "shapeable Large" to "Medium".

It'd make more sense if the text said: "We took the 3.5 rules for swarms and added a couple of special effects for the new types of swarms we created".

 

[LightPhoenix]

I can't add anything more on the mechanics that hasn't already been said. Those things look nasty.

Some people have commented on running giant swarms (ie, 100,000 insects). In that case, I wouldn't run it as a swarm, I'd run it as an environmental hazard. Moving near the swarm/hazard automatically causes you to take damage, as per the aura in the stat block. You can't really beat it, so there's no real need to give it HP. I might allow an area attack to disperse the hazard for a round, but ultimately it's an exercise in futility.

What I would do is this:

The sounds of clicking chitin against the stone behind them only drives their fear. Pardo looks back as he runs, and sees only an overbearing, rolling tide of scorpions. Seeing his allies lag behind, he shouts in desperation, "Faster! Faster would be better!" He turns and throws some alchemist's fire, but it barely slows the insects. Still, it gives Erais and Kathra a small degree of breathing room. That is, until several small groups left over from the fire attack the pair! The two desperately try to beat them back, but hasty egress is their only option. If only we had a wizard, Pardo thinks.

Mechanically:

The scorpion swarm is an environmental hazard - it moves at a speed of five squares per round. The small groups would be run via the swarm rules presented.

 

[Mort_Q]

Why aren't Minions swarms?

Minions, easy to kill.
Swarms, hard to kill.

Or am I missing something?

 

[Dunamin]

I think it would be neat if fire swords and the like would do full damage to swarms. They seem like the kind of weapons that can kill tons of small lizards or insects per sweep. I think it's so neat that it will be my first house rule .

I'll wager 200 gp and a donkey that there will be a bug swarm with "Vulnerable Fire X" in the MM.

 

[Mort_Q]

The flaming sword we saw in the preview turns weapon damage into fire damage.

Therefore swarms would take full damage from a flaming sword.

Reread the Swarms post... they used melee and ranged as the keywords.

What about the crits? Are those bursts?

 

[Agamon]

I see we're back to WotC's favorite 4E marketing tactic: telling us how much 3.X sucks.

This time it has the additional problem of 3.5's swarm rules being clearly superior to these. They seriously think those rules are "evocative"?

Isn't the point of a lot of these articles how things are changing? Obviously the majority of readers will have played 3.5 and therefore, they lay a frame of reference. Then they say, "Gee golly, isn't that cool," and people take it as slander towards the older edition.

Of course they're going to point out where they think they've made improvements. Oy vey.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The flaming sword we saw in the preview turns weapon damage into fire damage.

Therefore swarms would take full damage from a flaming sword.

The text says:

Resist half damage from melee and ranged attacks

Flaming sword is still a melee attack. Half damage.

 

[Ginnel]

The flaming sword we saw in the preview turns weapon damage into fire damage.

Therefore swarms would take full damage from a flaming sword.

ThirdWizard got there first

 

[Mort_Q]

Flaming sword is still a melee attack. Half damage.

Seen.

At least the ongoing damage from a flaming swords daily isn't melee.