Excerpt: Swarms

[Dausuul]

The swarm can make up to 3 such attacks, and would probably continue to make them until it successfully drags someone down. Then it attacks with the damage bonus (if it has any actions left), and its companions play pile-on. The way that multiple needlefang swarms complement each other is rather frightening. It's a neat image, but the damage done is a bit out of line for its level...

I would expect the swarm to always make one attack per round--it's not a brilliant tactician, after all. However, it would try to drag its victim down at least once, and twice if it can manage it.

As you say, it's when you have multiple needlefang swarms that it gets really ugly, because then it's virtually guaranteed that one or another of them will make its roll to put you on the ground. And then you eat a 2d10+4 aura attack from all of them at the start of your turn...

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Swarms...hm, Indiana Jones...

I like non-"BBEG" type dangers, swarms, fetid swamps with nasty diseases, etc, so this is cool: makes my DM life simpler (3.5 seriously got too much for me to DM with any fun, ugh) and should be nasty.

 

[ZetaStriker]

So summarize swarms: play as a dwarf or else.

 

[Boarstorm]

So summarize swarms: play as a dwarf or else.

Just that one swarm, sheesh.

 

[ZetaStriker]

I wasn't bashing, Boarstorm, it was a joke.

 

[Scribble]

I wonder if when you have more then one swarm then the size (and corrosponding aura) increases, but the number of attacks/damage does not...

So the whole monstrosity still only gets 1 attack per person in the aura, and does the same amount of damage on that attack, but the number of people it can attack increases...

 

[2eBladeSinger]

I wonder if when you have more then one swarm then the size (and corrosponding aura) increases, but the number of attacks/damage does not...

So the whole monstrosity still only gets 1 attack per person in the aura, and does the same amount of damage on that attack, but the number of people it can attack increases...

I was wondering much the same thing: how to scale a swarm encounter? Will we just add more individual swarms to the encounter, or (as they are already made up of several smaller creatures, make the one swarm larger, more viable, etc. It seems that with swarms, as deadly as they are, perhaps it's not sporting to add more than one and that, possibly, this accounts for their deadliness at a relatively low level.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I was wondering much the same thing: how to scale a swarm encounter? Will we just add more individual swarms to the encounter, or (as they are already made up of several smaller creatures, make the one swarm larger, more viable, etc. It seems that with swarms, as deadly as they are, perhaps it's not sporting to add more than one and that, possibly, this accounts for their deadliness at a relatively low level.

You may be right, but then if they want to keep the math consistent, the swarm should probably be worth more XP since an encounter would in theory be against only one - bringing this all back to the idea that maybe the drake swarm should be an elite, or something else should be pared back.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Something that concerns me with the swarm abilities to take 1/2 damage from ranged or melee attacks is the fact that some spells like Force Orb or Acid Arrow fall into this category. If you read the entries I've seen, it affects one target and as a secondary attack affects all adjacent creatures, which technically makes it different from burst and blast attacks. I guess it still technically counts as "area attacks" but it's unclear whether the primary attack from those spells get halved or if the swarm takes 5+ damage extra damage as the direct target.

 

[Mort_Q]

... but it's unclear whether the primary attack from those spells get halved or if the swarm takes 5+ damage extra damage as the direct target.

It's perfectly clear, you just don't like the result.

Keywords. The keyword is ranged. Those spell powers are ranged. They do half damage.

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4241272&postcount=9

The categories are:
Melee—single target, doesn't provoke, attack a nearby creature.
Close—multi-target, doesn't provoke, attack nearby creatures, origin square is your square.
Ranged—single target, provokes, attack a distant creature.
Area—multi-target, provokes, attack distant creatures, origin square is far away.