Excerpt: Swarms

[Ander00]

For stuff like spiders or bees (which exist in the real world) this might be easy... but how big is a single Needlefang Drake?

Savage marauders the size of cats, needlefang drakes swarm over their victims, pull them to ground, and strip them to the bone in seconds.

cheers

 

[ForbidenMaster]

14 pages is too much for scribble to read... so please forgive me if this was asked but...

How do we know how big a single creature in the swarm is (for purposes of squeezing through stuff...)

For stuff like spiders or bees (which exist in the real world) this might be easy... but how big is a single Needlefang Drake?

"The size of [a] cat"

 

[Dausuul]

All the sample monsters we've seen follow the guideline of Elites get 2x HP, Solos get 5x HP. That's not to say there can't be exceptions, but the pattern seems to hold based on the preview material.

Exactly. Guideline. Not rule. Exceptions are possible, and this might be one. You can't look at a monster's hit points, in the absence of any other factor, and say with absolute confidence that the monster you're looking at is or is not elite.

 

[Celebrim]

Now I don't know what to think.

I think Warlords are the bomb. I wonder if they are the new druid.

 

[keterys]

An elite doesn't have to have exactly x2 hp (the templates prove that), but similarly you can't just call a monster elite because it takes half damage from some powers and extra damage from others.

Like, that elite phane that is insubstantial, has double hp, and weakens (making you do half damage)? Well, double hp is elite, so insubstantial (takes half damage all the time, not just the swarms part of the time) makes him, what, Solo... and weakens for... what's a double Solo? Let's go for 'Singularity'.

That's completely absurd. You don't fix problems with the stats of something by lying (let's pretend it's elite), you actually fix its stats.

This isn't 3e where you follow a formula to generate all the stats, CR increases (honest, a half-fiend 20HD dinosaur is CR 9... the blasphemy that autokilled, no save, the entire party not-withstanding... right?)

If one monster has 100 hp, and another has 100 hp and regeneration 10, and they're both level 10, then there should be other differences to make up the power balance.

 

[Scribble]

cheers

Ok bad example I missed that one... But what about the stirge? How big is a stirge? It says they're batlike so does that mean they're the size of a bat?

I'm just saying I hope all of the creatures have some sort of indicator as to how big a single member is.

 

[keterys]

Edit: Just to note, I didn't want to change any other variables so the fight was still in a 10 foot hallway.

That fight would have been quite different if:
A) the swarms had gone first, instead of the PCs
B) the swarms hadn't been so piled up that AoE were able to hit all of the swarms.

A jungle fight where the swarms are coming from 5 different directions, or are able to get swarms underneath some people at the start, for instance.

If just a single swarm gets the chance to go for the AC 14 wizard before he goes, there's something like a 1 in 3 chance it kills him outright before he acts. And that's just 1 guy. Yeouch.

 

[Scribble]

Swarms + Innocent Sacrifices + Rituals = Unholy Terror unleashed upon the world = me smiling.

 

[Dausuul]

An elite doesn't have to have exactly x2 hp (the templates prove that), but similarly you can't just call a monster elite because it takes half damage from some powers and extra damage from others.

Like, that elite phane that is insubstantial, has double hp, and weakens (making you do half damage)? Well, double hp is elite, so insubstantial (takes half damage all the time, not just the swarms part of the time) makes him, what, Solo... and weakens for... what's a double Solo? Let's go for 'Singularity'.

That's completely absurd. You don't fix problems with the stats of something by lying (let's pretend it's elite), you actually fix its stats.

This isn't 3e where you follow a formula to generate all the stats, CR increases (honest, a half-fiend 20HD dinosaur is CR 9... the blasphemy that autokilled, no save, the entire party not-withstanding... right?)

This is precisely my point. You don't follow a rigid formula to generate all the stats. You have to look at the monster as a whole. If it's harder to inflict damage on the monster, because it has some special ability that reduces damage from most types of attack, then you have to treat the monster as having higher hit points than it actually does--because it will take more hits to kill it, which is what hit points mean.

Exactly how much higher? Well, that's a tricky question and depends on a lot of factors. But you can't just blow it off; the monster is tougher than a monster without that special ability.

In this case, the monster has a special ability that seems to make it overall tougher (the half damage from melee and ranged attacks tends to outweigh the vulnerability to area effects, from what I can see). It does a whole lot of damage and can hit multiple targets. It has some nasty special abilities that make it tactically quite strong. So it's worth considering the possibility that this monster might perform on the elite level. If it does perform on that level, then it is to all intents and purposes elite and ought to be used as such.

Now, after further consideration, I don't think this monster really is elite; I think it's just an unfortunate case of massive synergy with itself. Two drake swarms could be partnered with three other monsters and I don't think it would be a problem. It's just when you pile four or five of them together that the overlapping auras, and ability to knock everybody prone and keep them that way (thus layering on fantastic amounts of damage) becomes an issue.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

It was questioned that perhaps we are missing something from the excerpt. I think this may be the balance concern. My question regarding this: Isn't a basic attack sub-par from an at-will power? The auras for both state "swarm makes a basic attack against each enemy that starts its turn in the aura". Or am I missing something else?
Thanks

But the "+8 vs. AC; 1d10 + 4 damage, or 2d10 + 4 damage against a prone target" is the basic attack of the drake swarm. The sword icon with the circle around it is an indication that it is the basic attack.

Pull Down with a sword icon as a melee indicator without a circle around it indicates that is an "At-will" power.

Valiant attempt, but I think the damage on a prone target is really nasty and could prove a problem for 2nd level parties especially ones who don't get the luck of initiative.