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<blockquote data-quote="Esker" data-source="post: 7635771" data-attributes="member: 6966824">It's a good goal, since creating so many creatures really bogs down the game if you don't have a good way to deal with it.Ways in which the swarm is stronger than the individuals: they're way less susceptible to AoEs. A single fireball can completely annihilate ten animated objects, but does very little to the swarm.Ways in which it's weaker: (1) Can't spread out for positioning control / increased chance of AoOs (as you mentioned). (2) By collapsing to a single attack roll, the damage output becomes much swingier. The chance that the ten individuals all miss is close to nil against most ACs, whereas the swarm has a fair chance of that happening. Conversely, the chance that ten individuals all hit is also close to nil against many ACs, whereas the swarm has a fair chance of that happening. Both of these outcomes are bad in general: the first is obvious, but the second means that the average damage output is factoring in a lot more potential overkill damage, which isn't real damage.You could compensate for this swinginess by increasing the to-hit bonus further and decreasing the damage output further (and/or moving more of the damage output into the constant modifier and less in the dice). I'd have to do some math to figure out where to put these numbers, but it's definitely doable (the opposite extreme is auto-hit and always do average damage, so the sweet spot is probably somewhere in between this and that).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Esker, post: 7635771, member: 6966824"] It's a good goal, since creating so many creatures really bogs down the game if you don't have a good way to deal with it. Ways in which the swarm is stronger than the individuals: they're way less susceptible to AoEs. A single fireball can completely annihilate ten animated objects, but does very little to the swarm. Ways in which it's weaker: (1) Can't spread out for positioning control / increased chance of AoOs (as you mentioned). (2) By collapsing to a single attack roll, the damage output becomes much swingier. The chance that the ten individuals all miss is close to nil against most ACs, whereas the swarm has a fair chance of that happening. Conversely, the chance that ten individuals all hit is also close to nil against many ACs, whereas the swarm has a fair chance of that happening. Both of these outcomes are bad in general: the first is obvious, but the second means that the average damage output is factoring in a lot more potential overkill damage, which isn't real damage. You could compensate for this swinginess by increasing the to-hit bonus further and decreasing the damage output further (and/or moving more of the damage output into the constant modifier and less in the dice). I'd have to do some math to figure out where to put these numbers, but it's definitely doable (the opposite extreme is auto-hit and always do average damage, so the sweet spot is probably somewhere in between this and that). [/QUOTE]

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