Excerpt: Swarms

[ProfessorCirno]

Personally, I'm hoping we'll see some further rules to allow you to make large swarms of normal sized insects. Small swarms of semi-large bugs are nice and all, but when I want a swarm, I want a huge swarm of regular and normally ignored insects.

"You know those ants you've been stepping on on your way here? You see a lot more coming."
"...A lot?"
"Yes, that's probably a good way of putting it."

 

[Boarstorm]

Step 3: Profit like big oil.

Speaking of oil? Oh yeah. All over the floor. Mix in some drake swarms to make it interesting. Just don't drop the torch.

 

[Kzach]

Personally, I'm hoping we'll see some further rules to allow you to make large swarms of normal sized insects. Small swarms of semi-large bugs are nice and all, but when I want a swarm, I want a huge swarm of regular and normally ignored insects.

"You know those ants you've been stepping on on your way here? You see a lot more coming."
"...A lot?"
"Yes, that's probably a good way of putting it."

Again.

One swarm is the equivalent of one standard creature of it's level.

Five swarms is a standard encounter for a party of five PC's of the same level.

Five swarms aren't enough for you?

 

[Zelc]

Again.

One swarm is the equivalent of one standard creature of it's level.

Five swarms is a standard encounter for a party of five PC's of the same level.

Five swarms aren't enough for you?

I think trying to fight a several huge swarms composed of medium-sized ants would be fun. Right, PCs? Right?

 

[doctorhook]

Eh.

The 3e swarm mechanics were revolutionary.

This just did some streamlining. I don't have any real complaints, and the RBDM in me is thinking 'Flanking + Swarms' = 'Good Times'

You could have a minion swarm, but it would need to be made of up something reasonable fragile: 'glass beetles' or something. One whack and the whole swarm goes to peices. Alternately, the swarm is made of consumate cowards.

Well, I don't imagine the constituent creatures are particularly tough anyway; you'd just be replacing the Vulnerability mechanic with minion HP rules, yeah? I admit that might not make for the most thrilling of encounters, mind you, particularly if your party has a lot of large area attacks. OTOH, being surrounded by 20 minion swarms at party level might make a cool encounter once. I guess I'll have to try this out for myself.

Side by side, I think the minion and swarm rules are really showcasing the inner workings of the 4E design philosophy, or at least part of it. Taken together, I think we might also be looking at one of 4E's seams; it feels like there's going to be some redundancy and overlap between minion rules and swarm rules. I wonder (perhaps prematurely, I know) if this "seam" is one the things that future editions will further refine and build upon; this seems like a whole new territory for D&D, with tons of room to grow.[/optimistic gushing]

 

[Family]

"You know those ants you've been stepping on on your way here? You see a lot more coming."
"...A lot?"
"Yes, that's probably a good way of putting it."

The new Indiana Jones movie has a scene in it you'd might like.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Again.

One swarm is the equivalent of one standard creature of it's level.

Five swarms is a standard encounter for a party of five PC's of the same level.

Five swarms aren't enough for you?

Hah, that teaches me to skim over the thread. Yeah, that should be enough

The new Indiana Jones movie has a scene in it you'd might like.

I'm still beating myself up for not being able to see it until Tuesday. Out of town and all that.

I never would've thought we'd see Indiana Jones no longer be a trilogy. But hey, they made a new Rocky (Which was awesome) so it shouldn't be that surprising.

 

[frankthedm]

Here is a little png of that lizard swarm. Copy and paste as needed to skeletonize PCs.

BTW, when does ongoing damage happen in 4? Is it before the save get rolled? And do they stack? That could make a really bad situation for someone dog piled by stirge swarms.

 

[The_Fan]

For the size of the swarm, I think it's helpful to consider that the central square is only the core of the swarm, with parts of it spilling out to fill the 3x3 area of its aura. Add in 4 more micro-swarms, and you can cover up to 45 squares with squirming death. That's a pretty terrifying swarm.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

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"?