Excerpt: Swarms

[Dausuul]

Grin. Over on RPG.net, we've got someone claiming the 4e rules are a "return to common sense" because he thinks you're expected to overrule the rules like this. In other words, he's claiming the designers wrote broken/incomplete rules in order to "empower the DM". Me, I'm with you. If it says "ranged", then I don't care about the fluff text; it's ranged and affects swarms as written.

Hmm... well, my preference is to go with the rules as long as they make a modicum of sense. But if I wanted to play M:tG, I'd play M:tG. If the rules yield totally nonsensical results, verisimilitude takes precedence for me.

Now, the interaction of a ranged fire/acid/whatever attack with a swarm is not something I feel yields nonsensical results. I mean, you shoot a ray of fire at a five-foot-square swarm of spiders, you're not going to kill very many of them, just fry a small patch.

In fact, I'm not sure I've seen any 4E rule that I'd consider nonsensical enough to be objectionable--although there are certainly some that require getting used to. (If you ask me, they should have renamed "hit points" to "spirit points" or "vitality" or something, to emphasize that in THIS edition, when they say hit points don't represent pure physical toughness, they actually mean it and the mechanics will be consistent with that...)

Ah, the days of "How can you scare a stone wall to death?" Good times, good times...

See, now that's a perfect example of something that I'd tolerate in M:tG but not in D&D. In M:tG, it's just one of those silly quirks. In D&D, though, I'm going to be fairly annoyed if my DM announces that the stone wall I just took cover behind has been frightened and is running away.

 

[frankthedm]

Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins.

While a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack
rolls and takes 5 + Wis modifier radiant damage if it
makes an attack that doesn’t include you as a target. The
target takes this damage only once per turn.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Offhand, what card had birds which didn't have flying?

I dunno about birds, but we always joked that the Frozen Shade should have Flight, or at least Hover: Able to Block Flying Enemies.

 

[keterys]

Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins.

Ooh, thanks. Completely forgot about that.

 

[Rechan]

Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins.

Of course, if the swarm is attacking each person on the beginning of THEIR turn, then it's taking damage every turn against the people in its aura.

 

[FadedC]

Ah, the days of "How can you scare a stone wall to death?" Good times, good times...

Offhand, what card had birds which didn't have flying?

(Speaking of swarms, the PCs faced murder crows (TOH 3) last night. When killed, they explode into an undead raven swarm. Oddly, no one was bored as hundreds of zombie ravens who can blind you while doing 5d6 damage without regard to AC or saves were pecking at their eyes. I guess I was running them wrong. Next time I use swarms, I'll be sure to make them more boring.)

There was actually a magic card with a terror type effect that had flavor text somewhere along the lines of "Have you ever seen a stone wall drop dead from fright boy? It aint pretty". I always imagined the walls were still elemental creatures, but of course magic is a competitive card game and not a RPG so who cares.

There were lots of bird cards that didn't fly by design unless some special condition was met, like the fledgling osprey or the coastal hornclaw.

The trick with using swarms in 3e is you can't use only swarms or the fighters will be bored and have nothing to do. If they have murder crows to beat on they will be happy. But I've seen plenty of fights against a single swarm bog down to 6 rounds of everyone sitting 5 spaces from each other and passing to to the wizard. But I didn't really have that much trouble with swarms in 3e is used sparingly. I'd never want to run an all swarm fight in 3e though....that would be boring.

 

[Mengu]

Apparently, ongoing damage of the same type does not stack, so no one should be taking more than 3 damage per round from the rat swarms.

I wasn't sure how to handle it when it's not typed. I guess untyped is a type?

Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins.

Not quite so easy. It says once per turn, not once per round. Since the swarm will be attacking during each character's turn, it would be subject to the Divine Challenge damage every time. However if a character provoked an opportunity attack from it, after the aura attack, it would not suffer the damage again, since it's still the same character's turn.

 

[MindWanderer]

Of course, if the swarm is attacking each person on the beginning of THEIR turn, then it's taking damage every turn against the people in its aura.

Yep. Plenty dangerous.

 

[Vermonter]

Interesting discussion. I have a few reactions, but these are just thoughts as I have no basis for backing them up.

1 - Auras - Folks are acting like aura effects stack, but based on the logic in the rest of the game I highly doubt it. The way these are written is confusing, but I'd expect that only one swarm could attack a character at the start of that character's turn, no matter how many are present.
2 - Ongoing Effects - My understanding is that the same source of an effect does not typically stack. In addition, new effects of the same type do not stack. I'd expect that essentially untyped is indeed a type for this purpose.
3 - Paladin Marks - I read the only taking damage once per turn as being per turn of that creature. Hopefully this is more explicit somewhere as I can understand the interpretation put forward.

Overall I do think swarms are fairly different from 3e, but I'm not sure what I think about the fact that they don't mention combat advantage at all. Apparently two swarms can flank someone and a swarm can itself be flanked. It may be that there are other combat advantage reasons they left it in, but I wouldn't have minded if swarms neither gave nor received combat advantage.

 

[Yaezakura]

Well, I can sort of understand swarms having combat advantage applied against them. If an opponent is on each side of the swarm, some members of the swarm may be fending off one, and some the other. The swarm's effectiveness is therefore split between the two opponents, and thus they'd a bit easier to get a solid strike on. I doubt swarms would just completely ignore someone coming up behind him--and if they did, wouldn't he effectively have combat advantage, since they're not working to avoid his strikes?

As for swarms gaining combat advantage against someone else, why not? A swarm is as threatening as any other combatant, and it would be foolish to completely ignore the swarm while fending off another opponent. You'd still be trying to keep your eye on them and send a few swipes their way to try and get them to back off a bit, so your concentration would be split.