Excerpt: Swarms

[Spatula]

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.

"Their" deadliness really only refers to the needlefang swarm... the other swarms would appear to be much more manageable for their level.

 

[FireLance]

Slackers are probably gone for the weekend...

What shall we do! Will the uncertainty of not knowing if it is indeed a typo or a flaw in design kill us?

It would be nice if someone who had the three core rulebooks could clarify whether the preview is accurate. Do you know anyone who has the three core rulebooks and would be willing to help out the members of ENWorld? Anyone?

 

[That One Guy]

Mengu, thanks for running the tests.

I like the idea of the drakes, but they do seem overly powerful for their level. Hopefully WotC will have a fix by monday.

 

[2eBladeSinger]

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.

Yes, that is something to consider. I was thinking though of all this 'exception' based design and something in the swams entry that says "don't use more than one swarm per encounter, simply increase the size and hp of a swarm for a larger encounter." Because the elite rules add defense value (as well as HP) but not physical area, they might not have 'elite swarms'. I was pondering that this might be such an exception.

Also, to clarify ongoing damage: presuming a character is attacked by stirges on both his turn (from the aura) and on the stirges turn (via standard action) and fails both saves and knowing that ongoing damage won't stack - is it still necessary to keep track of both failures (and perhaps a third and fourth if it becomes necessary). The character would then only take 5 hp per round OD, but would require two, three, four, etc saves to eventually rid himself of the OD condition. Am I right?

 

[Celebrim]

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.

No, it's perfectly clear.

What I'm seeing from some of the play test reports running 4e, is that DMs from earlier editions are arbitrating it something like earlier editions. I suppose that is alright, but its not necessary.

In 4e the rules mean exactly what they say and only what they say. You aren't supposed to ask questions about them. If the rules seem like they should cover some case, but the rules don't say that they do - it's not an oversight; they just don't cover the case. Likewise, if something seems logical, but it isn't mentioned it's not an oversight. It's just an exception for the sake of simple, quick gameplay.

The error I see, which is quite understandable given how you'd treat special cases and edge cases in earlier editions, is akin to the way some players (who probably came out the D&D tradition) interacted with Magic Cards after they first came out. In trying to decide whether something had flying, they'd look at the card. If the picture showed it flying or it was a bird, then logically it could fly. It didn't matter if 'flying' wasn't present as a keyword in the text, the game was treated like an RPG because - much like RPGs - each game element (a card) had a flavor and was some sort of exception with the rules. So from an RPG perspective, it made since that birds flew even if it wasn't on the card.

Fourth edition rules - especially the rules for monsters and character powers - have a much more gamist perspective. They are very streamlined, very clean, and have obviously been influenced by what WotC learned from publishing MtG for 10+ years. They just do exactly what they say that they do.

 

[Agamon]

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

You're not allowed to joke in the swarm thread. Mearls' grim and serious debunking of 3e in the article set the tone...

 

[FadedC]

I wonder what would happen if you put a party against 5 rat swarms instead of 5 needlefang drake swarms. It would give you an idea if the needlefang drake swarm is broken, or if swarms in general are unbalanced at low levels.

 

[keterys]

Should be fine - ongoing damage doesn't stack, you can run away if you need to, and they're much easier to kill.

 

[Boarstorm]

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

Wasn't intending to bash either. Just noticed a lot of people have been talking as if this power were tied to swarms in general instead of just the needle drakes.

Just trying to be disambiguous.

Darn you, Wiki!

 

[Family]

You're not allowed to joke in the swarm thread. Mearls' grim and serious debunking of 3e in the article set the tone...

Not allowed to joke? I do believe that even Mearl's tone can't stand up to the precedent of awesome hilarity that was set back on page 5