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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4240457" data-attributes="member: 4937">If you make monsters more like magic cards, you'll get magic card like results.I suspect each new MM will have its 'trash' - low challenge creatures that give you lots of XP compared to the risk (zombie minion) - and its killer bombs - creatures that are much harder than thier XP suggests (needlefang drake swarm).Seriously, 2d10+4 damage?!?!?  We've seen very high level monsters whose basic attack didn't do more than 1d10+4 damage.  The crit on a pulled down character averages 26 damage.  And the designer seems to have neglected that its burst attack translates into extra standard actions each round.  That gives the swarm some very 'solo monster' like characteristics. And it's as durable as many elite monsters unless you have a ton of area attacks in the party. The funny thing is that this is difficult to fix without changing the monster.  If they make the swarm an elite monster, its hit points double.  If they raise its level, its gets more hit points and better attacks.  If they make it a level 1 solo monster (which is closer to its actual strength) not only does it get alot more hit points, but they are basically asserting you aren't supposed to encounter swarms in swarms.  The delicious irony.My guess is that they shouldn't have used quite so much 'exception based design' in designing the swarm.  Unless it is facing a controller, all of its characteristics are to its favor.  It looks like they decided that swarms should do damage as a creature larger than medium - d10 is a big dice.  It needs to drop to a d6 or something to be appropriate for a non-elite creature of this level.</blockquote>

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