Excerpt: Swarms

[Fallen Seraph]

Swarming over the forums is our newest Excerpt:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080523a

*mans the battlements for next Scoop War*

 

[Duelpersonality]

Needlefang Drake Swarms look very nasty, and fighters are going to have a hard time locking down any kind of swarm. Mmm, tasty, tasty wizards...

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I am going to have some fun with these, especially the Drakes. I can imagine the party running away from a Dragon and being chased by Drakes, each time they Drakes draw near the party fears being dropped prone and having to face the incoming Dragon.

 

[Kzach]

Minions and swarms.

I'm really loving 4e.

 

[Sojorn]

Ew. Minor action to knock down? Plus the "I eat you" aura? Ew.

 

[mrrodgers]

First 4e house rule: Bludgeoning weapons do normal damage against ground based swarms. Maul=Giant bloody flyswatter.
And what about ranged aoe effects of magical/divine nature? A fireball would surely fry the pesky blighters.

EDIT: @Duel: Not so tasty when the wizard casts fireball.

 

[Shroomy]

I'm going to bed soon, so when I wake-up, I expect to see at least a 10 page thread discussing the minutae of a single point from the excerpt. No, really, I'm happy with the 4e swarm examples and I'm glad that they went ahead and made the stirge a swarm-type creature. That said, the stirge is a classic low-level monster, so I hope there are some heroic-tier examples in the MM

 

[Colmarr]

I'm not convinced.

The first thing that struck me is that both swarms are Medium. If the drakes are the size of cats, surely a swarm of them should be more than 5' x 5'?

And I'm not sure my first thought was, as promised, "Get these things off me!"

EDIT: After looking at them a second time, they do look like formidable foes. I guess I miss the idea (although perhaps not the implementation) of the nausea caused by 3e swarms. That, to my mind, accurately represented the effect of having 100s or 1000s of beasties crawling over you.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

First 4e house rule: Bludgeoning weapons do normal damage against ground based swarms. Maul=Giant bloody flyswatter.
And what about ranged aoe effects of magical/divine nature? A fireball would surely fry the pesky blighters.

Well it does say:

Vulnerable 5 against close and area attacks.

So that would include fireballs.

 

[Family]

So, I wonder how long till people start thinking about high level Mammoth or Ancient Dragon swarms...

Darn it!