# Excerpt: Swarms



## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

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*


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## Duelpersonality (May 23, 2008)

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...


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

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.


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## Kzach (May 23, 2008)

Minions and swarms.

I'm really loving 4e.


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## Sojorn (May 23, 2008)

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


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## mrrodgers (May 23, 2008)

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.


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## Shroomy (May 23, 2008)

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


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## Colmarr (May 23, 2008)

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.


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

mrrodgers said:
			
		

> 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.


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

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

Darn it!


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## Khaim (May 23, 2008)

Colmarr said:
			
		

> 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'?




Well, a "swarm" might be 10-12 of them.


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

Khaim said:
			
		

> Well, a "swarm" might be 10-12 of them.




or 100,000 Killer Amazonian Ants


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## mrrodgers (May 23, 2008)

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> Well it does say:
> 
> *Vulnerable* 5 against close and area attacks.
> 
> So that would include fireballs.



whoops, missed that.

but still, that wizard's not so tasty


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## Dormain1 (May 23, 2008)

> Minions and swarms.




and solos oh my   

I like how they have group HP now rather than individual (where a single fireball rids you of the swarm)


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## mach1.9pants (May 23, 2008)

> exsanguinate



 nice word! If only I knew what it meant?!?


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## ForbidenMaster (May 23, 2008)

Colmarr said:
			
		

> 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!"



Well one could make the argument that they actually occupy a 15'x15' area as per their swarm attack ability, but for the purpose of determining where the actual swarm as a whole is, they are just in the middle square.  Sort of like how a normal human really doesnt take up a whole 5x5 square, but for the purpose of determening location thats the amount of space we say he ocupies.


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## mrrodgers (May 23, 2008)

mach1.9pants said:
			
		

> nice word! If only I knew what it meant?!?



to make something happy


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## Mouseferatu (May 23, 2008)

mach1.9pants said:
			
		

> nice word! If only I knew what it meant?!?




To drain or remove the blood. Someone who dies of exsanguination has bled to death.


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

What does *aura 1* mean exactly?


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## mrrodgers (May 23, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> What does *aura 1* mean exactly?



if you stand near it, it bites you.


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## ForbidenMaster (May 23, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> What does *aura 1* mean exactly?



It effects every 1 square away from it (think close burst 1).


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

mrrodgers said:
			
		

> if you stand near it, it bites you.



Yes that was implicit.  I was, however, looking for explicit.


			
				ForbidenMaster said:
			
		

> It effects every 1 square away from it (think close burst 1).



Thanks.  That was my guess.


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## Sojorn (May 23, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> Yes that was implicit.  I was, however, looking for explicit.



Everything in an adjacent square.


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## pukunui (May 23, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> Yes that was implicit.  I was, however, looking for explicit.
> 
> Thanks.  That was my guess.



 If you stand in a square adjacent to the swarm, it gets to bite you.

EDIT: Damn, Ninja'd!

Also, Mouseferatu, you fell for mach's feigned ignorance there. Didn't you see his little winky face? I'm sure he knows what exsanguinate means. I'd just like to go on the record and say that I think it's really awesome that they used that word! Way better than just saying "they suck your blood" or whatever.


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## MindWright (May 23, 2008)

Edited since everyone seems to be answering the aura question:

I would expect aura 1 to be the same area as a close burst 1, but always in effect instead of requiring an action. The swarm auras seem to be a free action  that lets the swarm hit you at the start of your turn if you are standing near or in the swarm.

Oh, and swarms no long provoke when they enter your square... seems like spreading out is still a good precaution, overall they look like they will run a lot smoother and easier than the 3rd edition tetris-shape swarms.


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## Lurker37 (May 23, 2008)

mach1.9pants said:
			
		

> nice word! If only I knew what it meant?!?




It's what aliens do to cattle.

...

Why is everyone staring at me?


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## Mouseferatu (May 23, 2008)

pukunui said:
			
		

> Also, Mouseferatu, you fell for mach's feigned ignorance there. Didn't you see his little winky face? I'm sure he knows what exsanguinate means. I'd just like to go on the record and say that I think it's really awesome that they used that word! Way better than just saying "they suck your blood" or whatever.




Better to be certain everyone knew, what with knowing being half the battle, and all.


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

Because of the swarm of aliens coming up behind you.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Colmarr said:
			
		

> 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'?
> 
> ...



In Jurassic Park 2, there's a scene where a guy gets eaten by about twenty of these little dinosaurs the size of a terrier. They're biting him everywhere - his lip, between his fingers. They leap and bite and weigh him down until he falls down, and then they just disseminate him. 

In that situation I dont' think nausea or distraction is appropriate, because you can still swing your sword when they're biting you and hanging on.


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> In Jurassic Park 2, there's a scene where a guy gets eaten by about twenty of these little dinosaurs the size of a terrier. They're biting him everywhere - his lip, between his fingers. They leap and bite and weigh him down until he falls down, and then they just disseminate him.



I thought of that as soon as I read the Drakes part.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Actually, if swarms are just a regular monster (for xp purposes), that means a swarm will be fighting with something else.

So... what sorts of things fight WITH a swarm? What will a swarm fight with, rather than attack? 

Although I do kinda like the idea of the swarm being a threat to EVERYONE, enemy and ally, but I'm just wondering what the swarm won't attack.


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## pukunui (May 23, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Better to be certain everyone knew, what with knowing being half the battle, and all.



Fair enough.



			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> They leap and bite and weigh him down until he falls down, and then they just *disseminate* him.



What, you mean they turn him into little pamphlets and distribute him around the neighborhood? I don't remember them doing that! 



> Actually, if swarms are just a regular monster (for xp purposes), that means a swarm will be fighting with something else.



More than one medium-sized swarm perhaps? Unless they've actually got larger swarms in the MM, you'd need to use several at once to make a "plague of locusts" and whatnot.


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

Well we can have Drakes and Dragons is a obvious one. 

Stirges and beings the feat off dead corpses (co-symbiotic relationship).

I can imagine the bug-pit from King Kong be a good place for Swarms, coupled with the giant bugs.


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## Scipio202 (May 23, 2008)

Swarms + Undead?  Stirges wouldn't be able to suck any blood from a zombie.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Am I the only one not that scared of the stirge swarm? It's kinda eh in the ability department. Especially for a 12th level monster. 

However, I find this interesting. A swarm gets a free attack against anyone adjacent to it. Then it gets a regular attack, plus a 'knock you down' attack as a minor. And if anyone moves into it, it gets an OA. 

That's harsh.


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

Scipio202 said:
			
		

> Swarms + Undead?  Stirges wouldn't be able to suck any blood from a zombie.



Hmm... Mini-plot, Stirges carry a disease that once drained of blood regenerates corpses into zombies... OOO, I can just imagine large-huge zombies that have the Stirge perched on them as they wander about.


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Am I the only one not that scared of the stirge swarm? It's kinda eh in the ability department.




Well it does get ongoing damage, and ordinary attack does a fair deal (especially coupled with the aura/OA).

Hmm... Would the ongoing damage stack? So would it be first-attack 5, next-attack (if not saved) 10, and so on.


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

Head spolder: To mock up a large battle, could you have swarms of minions?


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> Well we can have Drakes and Dragons is a obvious one.



Aren't dragons solo?

Also, while it says "Drake", I don't think these guys are mini-dragons. I mean, they don't have a fly speed, so they don't have Wings. I think of them as well... pack-hunting lizards. The equivalent of African Wild Dogs, but bite sized.  

A flying foe coupled with these buggers, however, is good.

That reminds me - pushing someone into the square that a swarm occupies probably wouldn't let the Swarm make an OA against the pushed target, would it?


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> ... what sorts of things fight WITH a swarm? What will a swarm fight with, rather than attack?




How about a nice non-close, non-area, trap?  Skill challenges?  Rope bridges and stirges go together like shifters and fleas.



			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> I mean, they don't have a fly speed, so they don't have Wings.



That doesn't follow.  Having wings is no more evidence of the ability to fly than not having wings is evidence of being unable to fly... especially in D&D.


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## Gloombunny (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Actually, if swarms are just a regular monster (for xp purposes), that means a swarm will be fighting with something else.
> 
> So... what sorts of things fight WITH a swarm? What will a swarm fight with, rather than attack?
> 
> Although I do kinda like the idea of the swarm being a threat to EVERYONE, enemy and ally, but I'm just wondering what the swarm won't attack.



Other swarms of the same critters.  Undead.  Constructs.  The vile sorcerer-priest of some obscure bug-deity who summoned them.


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## frankthedm (May 23, 2008)

mrrodgers said:
			
		

> First 4e house rule: Bludgeoning weapons do normal damage against ground based swarms.  Maul=Giant bloody flyswatter.



Hardly. a maul might have aa bit more area to it's impact, but thats till less than 1/4 of a cubic foot. Now a shield bash with ones weight behind it probably should grant the effect you desire.

Hmm. VERY interesting that swarms are not Solos. They dropped the four for one, but they still look like a few swarms will be NASTY.


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## Stalker0 (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Am I the only one not that scared of the stirge swarm? It's kinda eh in the ability department.




Yeah, the stirge left me unfulfilled. But holy crap is that drake swarm scary!!!

If it knocks you prone, it deals 2d10 + 4 damage! (avg 15, take that wizard). Then on your turn, it gets another hit. And this is a 2nd level monster, holy crap who is this thing not a brute instead of a solider?

And since its just one monster, a perfectly reasonable encounter against 5 pcs is 5 of these things. Um....good luck party, your going to need it.


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Aren't dragons solo?
> 
> Also, while it says "Drake", I don't think these guys are mini-dragons. I mean, they don't have a fly speed, so they don't have Wings. I think of them as well... pack-hunting lizards. The equivalent of African Wild Dogs, but bite sized.
> 
> ...



Sure their Solo at around their level, but once you get high enough they aren't. So you should be able to through a Swarm or two in.

Well, Drakes could simply have underdeveloped wings, thus no flight.

Actually your dog comment got me thinking, while their larger then tiny... But packs of dogs that act as swarms?


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## Scipio202 (May 23, 2008)

3 swams plus an immobilizing trap to make it harder to use AoEs or to get away from the free attack aura.


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## Kzach (May 23, 2008)

Swarms are considered a standard creature of their level.

So for a 12-th level group of five PC's, that's five stirge swarms to make a standard encounter.

Ouch.


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## Zelc (May 23, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Yeah, the stirge left me unfulfilled. But holy crap is that drake swarm scary!!!
> 
> If it knocks you prone, it deals 2d10 + 4 damage! (avg 15, take that wizard). Then on your turn, it gets another hit. And this is a 2nd level monster, holy crap who is this thing not a brute instead of a solider?
> 
> And since its just one monster, a perfectly reasonable encounter against 5 pcs is 5 of these things. Um....good luck party, your going to need it.



Don't forget, you try to move out and it gets another opportunity attack against you.  So you get hit up to three times per round... ouch!

And I think the ongoing damage 5 from the stirge attack stacks...  So, how bout ongoing that damage 15, hope you save and remove a few before it hits you three times again?


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## mrrodgers (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Actually, if swarms are just a regular monster (for xp purposes), that means a swarm will be fighting with something else.
> 
> So... what sorts of things fight WITH a swarm? What will a swarm fight with, rather than attack?
> 
> Although I do kinda like the idea of the swarm being a threat to EVERYONE, enemy and ally, but I'm just wondering what the swarm won't attack.



Chaotic Evil Beekeepers.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Gloombunny said:
			
		

> Other swarms of the same critters.



I'm somewhat resistant to using the same monster x4-5. However...

Something else occurred to me. Creatures like the Cavern Choker probably can climb along the walls and snag people. Same with flying monsters loitering at the top of the cave, while the bottom of the cave is covered with bugs. 

Scorpions and Spiders carry their young on their back - I can see a giant scorpion (or giant spider) that, when attacked, all the young *explode* off of it in a wave of destruction. 

Symbiotic relationships. Lots of tiny animals get their food by eating parasites off of big animals. These guys making sure parasites and predators like weasels stay away from dinosaur/dragon/something else's eggs, the big nasty monster might tolerate the little guys.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> If it knocks you prone, it deals 2d10 + 4 damage! (avg 15, take that wizard). Then on your turn, it gets another hit. And this is a 2nd level monster, holy crap who is this thing not a brute instead of a solider?



As a soldier, it has smaller hit points, among other things. If it was a brute, it'd have a hell of a lot of hit points. Like the stirges.

Also, I'd like an answer: does ongoing damage stack?


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## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

I plan on using whatever bug swarms there are in a scene with whatever giant bugs there are to replicate the Bug Pit from King Kong, it would just work so perfectly.

Hmm... I hope there are lurker variants. I could see some swarms that quickly attack and then disappear into a hole and then quickly attack again.

I too want to know if ongoing stacks. It would make sense here, since would represent more Stirges latching onto the PC and draining him, while succeeding in your save is you swiping them off.


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## mrrodgers (May 23, 2008)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> Hardly. a maul might have aa bit more area to it's impact, but thats till less than 1/4 of a cubic foot. Now a shield bash with ones weight behind it probably should grant the effect you desire.
> 
> Hmm. VERY interesting that swarms are not Solos. They dropped the four for one, but they still look like a few swarms will be NASTY.



It depends on the maul...
Also, If you are using a rectangular maul, you can always swat withe the sides not normally reserved for striking.  Furthermore, if a player actually decides to USE a maul, they deserve some extra bonus because seriously, who actually uses mauls?


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

mrrodgers said:
			
		

> because seriously, who actually uses mauls?




Darth Sideous


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## Lurker59 (May 23, 2008)

According to KotS ongoing damage of the same type doesn't stack. But a character is basically going to be taking 5 damage every round until the swarm is dead since the swarm will likely hit at least once with its 2-3 attacks.


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## doctorhook (May 23, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

> Head spolder: To mock up a large battle, could you have swarms of minions?



This was exactly the first thing I thought about; can we have minion swarms? Swarms of minions? Swarms of swarms? :hehhehheh:

I imagine our trusty DMG will have rules for creating things like these, not to mention sizing up that Medium Needlefang Drake Swarm up to Large, to really scare our players.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

It shouldn't be hard to up its level. Though I wonder at what point the 1d10 becomes a 2d10 (and the 2d10 becomes a 3d10)?


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## Stalker0 (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> It shouldn't be hard to up its level. Though I wonder at what point the 1d10 becomes a 2d10 (and the 2d10 becomes a 3d10)?




Probably not for a long time, monster damage seems to scale extremely slowly in 4e.


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

doctorhook said:
			
		

> Can we have Swarms of Minions? Swarms of Swarms?




A Swarm of Flying Mammoth Zombie Minions?


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## Blackeagle (May 23, 2008)

doctorhook said:
			
		

> This was exactly the first thing I thought about; can we have minion swarms? Swarms of minions? Swarms of swarms? :hehhehheh:




Minion swarms?
Minion brute swarms?
Minion brute soldier swarms?
Swarm brute soldier swarms?
Swarm minion swarm swarm brute swarms?
Swarm swarm swarm minion swarms?
Swarm swarm swarm swarm swarm swarm brute  swarm swarm swarm swarms?

Vikings singing: 
Swarms swarms swarms swarms
Swarms swarm swarms swarms
Lovely swarms, wonderful swarms . . .


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## Dormain1 (May 23, 2008)

> Originally Posted by Rechan
> It shouldn't be hard to up its level. Though I wonder at what point the 1d10 becomes a 2d10 (and the 2d10 becomes a 3d10)?




I would expect every 10 levels ie 1d10 @1-9 2d10 @10-19 and 3d10@20-30

or possibly every five if you want a really brutal game


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

> A Swarm of Flying Mammoth Zombie Minions?




"That's a level of AWESOME you just can't beat..."


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## frankthedm (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> I'm somewhat resistant to using the same monster x4-5. However...



You already ARE using the same monster many times over. Its called a swarm for that very reason







			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> Something else occurred to me. Creatures like the Cavern Choker probably can climb along the walls and snag people. Same with flying monsters loitering at the top of the cave, while the bottom of the cave is covered with bugs.



 Dire bats and killer cockroaches with a cavern floor of guano should be remembered for a long time.







			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> Scorpions and Spiders carry their young on their back - I can see a giant scorpion (or giant spider) that, when attacked, all the young *explode* off of it in a wave of destruction.



Nice two part encounter







			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> Symbiotic relationships. Lots of tiny animals get their food by eating parasites off of big animals. These guys making sure parasites and predators like weasels stay away from dinosaur/dragon/something else's eggs, the big nasty monster might tolerate the little guys.



Cloverfield's monster seemed to have that going. And a Megalodon with swarms of remora could make a solid encounter as well.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> You already ARE using the same monster many times over. Its called a swarm for that very reason.



I meant from an Encounter Budget perspective, not a literal sense. I mean, an encounter of five kobolds fine, but not five kobold skirmishers, or five slingers, ya know?


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## hong (May 23, 2008)

What's wrong with fighting 5 kobold skirmishers?


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

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.


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## PrecociousApprentice (May 23, 2008)

You may be right, but that is not what I interpreted when I heard "minion swarm". I got the impression that this referred to an abstraction of the actual number of minions, and the swarm of them didn't get any weaker until the whole of them were killed.


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## Agamon (May 23, 2008)

Kzach said:
			
		

> Minions and swarms.
> 
> I'm really loving 4e.




Okay, I know Mearls was being funny, but for some reason, this article really switched on the light for me.  I've gone from, "Yep, 4e's comin'," to "OMG, I must have these books NOW!"

C'mon June!


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## baberg (May 23, 2008)

Seriously, those Drake Swarms?  Put two of those into a 40' room and watch as the PCs go "squish".  Especially if you've only got one caster with a Burst/Area ability.


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## Darth Cyric (May 23, 2008)

Wow, talk about bypassing defenders something fierce. Well, Fighters, anyway. We've seen some burst attacks from Paladins, at least.


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

It's all part of their devious plan. The upcoming supplemental books no long make your character better and "cooler" if you buy them. They are necessary to stay alive.

Step 1: Introduce swarms and KotS difficulty adventures.
Step 2: Sell PHBII indicating how not to die.
Step 3: Profit like big oil.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 23, 2008)

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."


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## Boarstorm (May 23, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

> 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.


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## Kzach (May 23, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> 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?


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## Zelc (May 23, 2008)

Kzach said:
			
		

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



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


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## doctorhook (May 23, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Eh.
> 
> The 3e swarm mechanics were revolutionary.
> 
> ...



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]


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> "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.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 23, 2008)

Kzach said:
			
		

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




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



			
				Family said:
			
		

> 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.


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## frankthedm (May 23, 2008)

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 (May 23, 2008)

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 (May 23, 2008)

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"?


----------



## Mighty Veil (May 23, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

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




No doubt 

Russians do not have DR vs. swarms.


----------



## Mouseferatu (May 23, 2008)

Mighty Veil said:
			
		

> No doubt
> 
> Russians do not have DR vs. swarms.




In Soviet Union, action points spend you.


----------



## DeusExMachina (May 23, 2008)

Now all we need is for the swarm of locusts to be able to drop full plate mail as treasure and we can play some Diablo II... 

Anyway, like the swarm rules, simple and effective and it does give me a cool idea about an encounter where a whole cavern or chasm is filled with a huge swarm of bugsa and they'll need to blast (or run) their way through it somehow...


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## MindWanderer (May 23, 2008)

doctorhook said:
			
		

> This was exactly the first thing I thought about; can we have minion swarms? Swarms of minions? Swarms of swarms? :hehhehheh:



No swarms of swarms: "A swarm is considered a single monster even though it is composed of several *Tiny* creatures. Most single swarms are Medium, but some can be larger."  The constituent creatures must be Tiny.  No larger, and a swarm is always at least Medium.  Also note that it's _exactly_ Tiny, which rather heavily implies that Tiny is the smallest size category now.







			
				frankthedm said:
			
		

> 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.



It happens at the beginning of the victim's turn, and the save happens at the end, so unless a buddy helps you out somehow, you're guaranteed to take the damage.  Ongoing damage of the same type does not stack.


----------



## Family (May 23, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> In Soviet Union, action points spend you.




Mouseferatu, I put to you sir: Are you now or have you ever been, or associated with, a member of the Communist Party?


----------



## That One Guy (May 23, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

> "That's a level of AWESOME you just can't beat..."



Totally sent that comic to friends just now. Rad.

As far as the minion swarm goes... I like the idea of the PCs dealing with groups of goblins all at once rather than a bunch of minions. Could be fun. Could get old... but I think it would really help for those truly epic PC parties that take on armies, or could really give the players that feeling of "Yeah, we are BAMFs." Also, swarms of weaklings may give a good sense of flavour for a party in the middle of a war. I hope the rules at least allow me to make a sweet war session without a headache... or that they give me a really easy way to houserules it up.

All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with the swarm rules.


----------



## Mathew_Freeman (May 23, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> In Soviet Union, action points spend you.




I'm at work, dammit! Quit making me laugh! 

I'm loving this article - not having kept up with 3e books I'd never fought or used swarms in a game, so this is all new to me, and it looks like great fun.

I love how 4e is making sense - one thing leads neatly into another, like with the drakes here. Move action to close - minor action to pull down - standard action for chow time!


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## Plane Sailing (May 23, 2008)

> Well, the release of the new game is right around the corner, so it's time to blow the lid off this thing. Since 4E was first announced, gamers have besieged us with phone calls, emails, and even a protest march demanding one thing above all else: How do swarms work in 4E?




I'm guessing this is deliberate hyperbole, because I've not seen the question of 4e swarms raised even once on ENworld... (unlike pretty much everything else!).

Stirges as swarms makes a lot of sense (because you're not having to worry about micro-managing the grapple attempts of dozens of the little beggars), although it will lose a little bit of its scare factor... like the time when the Large PC was successfully attacked by about 16 stirges, and he knew that on their next action he would be exsanguinated with a vengeance and so he cried out "fireball me! fireball me NOW!".

One genre staple that seems to be missing is the opportunity to use a torch to fend off swarms (whether insects or snakes - go Indy!). Perhaps anyone with a torch could use "Attack vs Will" in order to prevent the swarm approaching close enough to 'aura' them.


----------



## hong (May 23, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> I'm guessing this is deliberate hyperbole, because I've not seen the question of 4e swarms raised even once on ENworld... (unlike pretty much everything else!).




I think the bit where they throw the designer into a box with 100,000 ants might be hyperbole as well.


----------



## Boarstorm (May 23, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> I think the bit where they throw the designer into a box with 100,000 ants might be hyperbole as well.




Such cynicism!

You know, hong, sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.


----------



## Fallen Seraph (May 23, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> One genre staple that seems to be missing is the opportunity to use a torch to fend off swarms (whether insects or snakes - go Indy!). Perhaps anyone with a torch could use "Attack vs Will" in order to prevent the swarm approaching close enough to 'aura' them.



Hmm... Your right Plane Sailing, we do need something like this. We got the *insect on shoulder and you swipe it away and realize there is 20 more on you* with the "save ends" for ongoing damage. But we do need the torch...

Hmm... I wonder if torches themselves like some weapons could have some "powers", so:

*Power (at-will):* Minor. Swarm Attack does not work until the end of your next turn.


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## FadedC (May 23, 2008)

So if I understand right....

The drake swarm moves up to the wizard, trips him and hits him for 14.5 damage on average. Then on the wizard's turn before he can take an action he gets hit for 14.5 again (and probably goes down if he is level 1-2). Meanwhile everyone else is taking damage pulses and hitting it for half damage.

Seems a bit overly powerful for a lvl 2 creature. 5 of them seem like they would TPK an equal level party.


----------



## MortalPlague (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> So... what sorts of things fight WITH a swarm? What will a swarm fight with, rather than attack?




I have had an absolutely terrifying epiphany.  A veritable vision of viciousness, if you will.  I cannot wait to run this encounter.

The first thing you hear are the heavy footfalls.  Something big is lumbering towards you, and it sounds like stone against the stone floor of the crypt.  The cobwebs shift as gradually, the stone golem comes into view; a towering, solid creature completely of stone.  And covering its surface like a carpet, a host of winged insects.  As the scent of your warm flesh reaches their nostrils, they beat their wings and begin to fly...


----------



## Gargazon (May 23, 2008)

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> Hmm... Your right Plane Sailing, we do need something like this. We got the *insect on shoulder and you swipe it away and realize there is 20 more on you* with the "save ends" for ongoing damage. But we do need the torch...
> 
> Hmm... I wonder if torches themselves like some weapons could have some "powers", so:
> 
> *Power (at-will):* Minor. Swarm Attack does not work until the end of your next turn.




I believe this was left out as you can have intelligent swarms and fire-resistant swarms, both of which I imagine would laugh at a torch.


----------



## pogminky (May 23, 2008)

Long-time lurker, first time poster.

Just to say I love 4e swarms!  Can't wait to combine them with minions.


----------



## frankthedm (May 23, 2008)

Stirge swarm


----------



## DeusExMachina (May 23, 2008)

FadedC said:
			
		

> So if I understand right....
> 
> The drake swarm moves up to the wizard, trips him and hits him for 14.5 damage on average. Then on the wizard's turn before he can take an action he gets hit for 14.5 again (and probably goes down if he is level 1-2). Meanwhile everyone else is taking damage pulses and hitting it for half damage.
> 
> Seems a bit overly powerful for a lvl 2 creature. 5 of them seem like they would TPK an equal level party.




It might be powerful, but realize that even against a 2nd level wizard it is unlikely that the trip and the 2 attacks will hit. Also with 38 hitpoints and vulnerability to close and area attacks, these guys will go down fast when attacked by the right kind of attack...
All in all I agree that they seem a bit nastier than your average goblin though...


----------



## glass (May 23, 2008)

pogminky said:
			
		

> Long-time lurker, first time poster.



Welcome!



			
				pogminky said:
			
		

> Just to say I love 4e swarms!



Me too!


glass.


----------



## glass (May 23, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> I think the bit where they throw the designer into a box with 100,000 ants might be hyperbole as well.



You think it was only 10000 ants? 


glass.


----------



## fnwc (May 23, 2008)

Zelc said:
			
		

> And I think the ongoing damage 5 from the stirge attack stacks...  So, how bout ongoing that damage 15, hope you save and remove a few before it hits you three times again?




Ongoing damage of the same type isn't added together, only the higher number applies.

That being said, you might be right as the stirge ongoing damage is untyped, even though it's implied physical damage.


----------



## Plane Sailing (May 23, 2008)

FadedC said:
			
		

> So if I understand right....
> 
> The drake swarm moves up to the wizard, trips him and hits him for 14.5 damage on average. *Then on the wizard's turn before he can take an action he gets hit for 14.5 again* (and probably goes down if he is level 1-2). Meanwhile everyone else is taking damage pulses and hitting it for half damage.




My emphasis added. Why do you think that? Because of the aura effect? I think it is only ongoing damage which affects you before you take any actions.


----------



## hong (May 23, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> My emphasis added. Why do you think that? Because of the aura effect? I think it is only ongoing damage which affects you before you take any actions.



 Is there a difference?


----------



## DeusExMachina (May 23, 2008)

Yes, there is.

The ongoing damage would be at the start of the wizard's turn, the aura attack is at the start of the swarm's turn. Big difference, I'd say because in the second case the wizard gets to move out of the aura range if he wants to...


----------



## hong (May 23, 2008)

DeusExMachina said:
			
		

> Yes, there is.
> 
> The ongoing damage would be at the start of the wizard's turn, the aura attack is at the start of the swarm's turn. Big difference, I'd say because in the second case the wizard gets to move out of the aura range if he wants to...



 No, what FadedC was saying is that the aura attack is at the start of the wizard's turn.

Which makes sense. Otherwise you can have the situation where you start your turn in the swarm's aura, then you run away, then on ITS turn, you take damage even though you're nowhere near the swarm. This doesn't make sense.


----------



## duke_Qa (May 23, 2008)

i think people are thinking about the pit fiend aura, which i think worked in such a fashion that it did damage twice(when entered(/pit fiends turn) and when it was your turn). 

i don't have time to check the differences on the auras, but this might be interesting from a exception-based game-design standpoint. its good that aura's can have exceptions to them imo, makes for easier modifications.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 23, 2008)

Jeff Wilder said:
			
		

> 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"?



I wondered when someone would finally call upon that in the article  I might have done it myself, but the article start was just way to funny to complain about it.  At least now we have a solid example of 3.5 bashing, instead of just the vague stuff where they compare how things differ and they think their version is better. (They are usually right on that stuff, in my opinion.  )

Well, I happen to like the idea of the Swarm rules of 3.5, and I don't think the implementation was that bad, either. They were a pain to fight, since they were hard to damage. 
But the new one really looks better. The "take it off of me" really comes off better, especially with the Swarm Aura...


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## Byronic (May 23, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

> Head spolder: To mock up a large battle, could you have swarms of minions?




For some reason this made me thing of fluffy cute chiwawa minion swarms. I could imagine that, I mean they're fragile enough to break easily and you could hit multiple of them so that the swarm goes down with one hit point. Pity the damage doesn't work out right though. Maybe if they were zombie chiwawas?

One thing I am wondering, does this mean that if I would hit a Swarm with a melee attack (let's say a sword), would I get +5 damage because of the vulnerability to close attacks and then have it halved because of their "half damage to melee"?


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## Jack99 (May 23, 2008)

Byronic said:
			
		

> For some reason this made me thing of fluffy cute chiwawa minion swarms. I could imagine that, I mean they're fragile enough to break easily and you could hit multiple of them so that the swarm goes down with one hit point. Pity the damage doesn't work out right though. Maybe if they were zombie chiwawas?
> 
> One thing I am wondering, does this mean that if I would hit a Swarm with a melee attack (let's say a sword), would I get +5 damage because of the vulnerability to close attacks and then have it halved because of their "half damage to melee"?




Sword is a melee attack, not a close attack. Close attacks are mostly magical area spells.


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## Voss (May 23, 2008)

Well.
*pauses, clears throat*

Very, very nice.  I like the medium-but-not angle the aura provides, and that if you want to attempt to battle a swarm in melee, you have to effectively get inside it to do so.  This is abstraction that works.

The stirge swarm damage isn't that bad.  It can drop a striker or controller in roughly 4 rounds if it gets lucky, and deal damage to that characters friends at the same time.

Scariest thing about the drake swarm: speed 7.  Most of the party isn't getting away.

Multiple swarms are truly, truly frightening.  Thats a lot of attacks if multiple swarms get next to you.


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## Ragnar69 (May 23, 2008)

DeusExMachina said:
			
		

> Now all we need is for the swarm of locusts to be able to drop full plate mail as treasure and we can play some Diablo II...
> 
> Anyway, like the swarm rules, simple and effective and it does give me a cool idea about an encounter where a whole cavern or chasm is filled with a huge swarm of bugsa and they'll need to blast (or run) their way through it somehow...





Hmm, a magic plate mail on a corpse and when the PCs investigate it, a swarm busrts out of it ^^


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## DeusExMachina (May 23, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> No, what FadedC was saying is that the aura attack is at the start of the wizard's turn.
> 
> Which makes sense. Otherwise you can have the situation where you start your turn in the swarm's aura, then you run away, then on ITS turn, you take damage even though you're nowhere near the swarm. This doesn't make sense.




Good point. I misread the power there. I thought it got a free attack against everybody that was inside its aura at the start of its turn, but that's not what it says...
That makes them a lot scarier actually...


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Swarms: One reason you want a Dragonborn in the party. 

Hmm. I guess things like Force Orb and Acid arrow don't count as area effects, even though they radiate out from the point of attack (the equivalent of splash damage), right?


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## frankthedm (May 23, 2008)

Voss said:
			
		

> Scariest thing about the drake swarm: speed 7.  Most of the party isn't getting away.
> 
> Multiple swarms are truly, truly frightening.  Thats a lot of attacks if multiple swarms get next to you.



Yep.


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## med stud (May 23, 2008)

I think it would be neat if fire swords and the like would do full damage to swarms. They seem like the kind of weapons that can kill tons of small lizards or insects per sweep. I think it's so neat that it will be my first house rule .

It may sound strange, but this is the preview I feel most thrilled about. The aura is the perfect way of simulating that you are _in_ the swarm when you are fighting it and the lizards' ability to trip someone and tear them apart is really neat. I can imagine the reaction from the players' side already .

Yep, those lizards will end up in an adventure, that's for sure


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## med stud (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Swarms: One reason you want a Dragonborn in the party.
> 
> Hmm. I guess things like Force Orb and Acid arrow don't count as area effects, even though they radiate out from the point of attack (the equivalent of splash damage), right?



I would call the area effects, at least by the way I view those spells. I can see two alternatives when it comes to those spells:

1) The acid arrow spell sends out a swarm of arrows, one large for the main victim and a bunch of smaller for collateral damage. The force orb hits one target and then splits up into smaller orbs that hit the ones close to the target that you want them to hit.

2) The acid arrow splashes out around the target and the force orb is a controlled explosion.

I view them as version 2) and in that case I would say that they can hurt swarms.


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## Heselbine (May 23, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> I think it would be neat if fire swords and the like would do full damage to swarms. They seem like the kind of weapons that can kill tons of small lizards or insects per sweep. I think it's so neat that it will be my first house rule .
> 
> It may sound strange, but this is the preview I feel most thrilled about. The aura is the perfect way of simulating that you are _in_ the swarm when you are fighting it and the lizards' ability to trip someone and tear them apart is really neat. I can imagine the reaction from the players' side already .
> 
> Yep, those lizards will end up in an adventure, that's for sure



 I agree - it was too easy to escape 3.5e swarms. The aura seems a great way of extending the use of these - and will almost certainly catch out unwary PCs the first time it happens.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

So if I understand the Aura thing correctly, the swarm basically gets a free attack in any square adjacent to it - that it threatens, essentially. 

It drives home the "GET BACK" and "Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" feel.


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## Voss (May 23, 2008)

Yes, as written, force orb and acid arrow are not area attacks.


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## CubeKnight (May 23, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> I think it would be neat if fire swords and the like would do full damage to swarms. They seem like the kind of weapons that can kill tons of small lizards or insects per sweep. I think it's so neat that it will be my first house rule .
> 
> It may sound strange, but this is the preview I feel most thrilled about. The aura is the perfect way of simulating that you are _in_ the swarm when you are fighting it and the lizards' ability to trip someone and tear them apart is really neat. I can imagine the reaction from the players' side already .
> 
> Yep, those lizards will end up in an adventure, that's for sure



 IIRC, the Flaming Weapon we saw a but ago made the weapon deal Fire damage instead of Weapon damage. So yes, a Flaming Longsword deals full damage to a swarm.


----------



## Andor (May 23, 2008)

The dwarves just have to out run _you._ Oh wait. They're dwarves.  Comedy gold. 

Gimli: "Dammit!"


----------



## Ginnel (May 23, 2008)

CubeKnight said:
			
		

> IIRC, the Flaming Weapon we saw a but ago made the weapon deal Fire damage instead of Weapon damage. So yes, a Flaming Longsword deals full damage to a swarm.



Unfortunately not the sword is still a melee attack so would do half damage according to the written description on the stat block.


----------



## Lizard (May 23, 2008)

Skipping over the usual "3e was t3h suxx0r!" introduction, we get swarms that....aren't really all that different from 3e swarms. They aren't subject to forced movement from normal attacks, which is a change which is really only relevant to 4e. They're vulnerable to area attacks, which makes sense, and is also the way it was in 3e. Instead of automatic damage, they have a free attack on anyone adjacent to/within them, and I'm not sure how that is more "Ah, get 'em off me!" than the 3e auto-damage was. (3e also had them inflict conditions, such as nausea, if you were in a swarm, while in 4e, you only suffer damage. So, again, not sure how the changes meet the stated design goals.)

Looking at the 3e swarm rules, it seems 4e swarms can be flanked, knocked prone (unless that's forced movement), and affected by single-target spells, in ways 3e swarms can't. Melee attacks which do fire damage don't seem more effective against 4e swarms than any other melee attack. So, again, unless I'm missing some special interactions with the rules, I'm not seeing how the 4e swarms are "swarmier" than the 3e ones; if anything, they're more like normal creatures. And I'm not sure why 4e swarms are any less "boring" (my group must have a high tolerance for boredom, as we never thought swarms were any more boring than any other monster; I am beginning to get the impression that the 4e design team uses "boring" to mean "may cause some characters to be more effective than others" -- but this still doesn't work, as strikers and defenders are much less effective against swarms in 4e than controllers and at least some leaders -- the warlord's positioning powers are basically useless.)


----------



## Plane Sailing (May 23, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> I would call the area effects, at least by the way I view those spells. I can see two alternatives when it comes to those spells:
> 
> 1) The acid arrow spell sends out a swarm of arrows, one large for the main victim and a bunch of smaller for collateral damage. The force orb hits one target and then splits up into smaller orbs that hit the ones close to the target that you want them to hit.
> 
> ...




The spell descriptions are actually very clear though.

Acid Arrow is a ranged attack with a primary target of one creature and secondary targets of adjacent creatures. It isn't an area or a blast effect. Force Orb likewise affects creatures, and is neither a blast nor an area spell.

On the other hand, 

Burning Hands (encounter power from KotS) is a Close Blast 5 which will be great against them, and the Scorching Burst at-will is a Area burst 1 within 10 squares, which will also be fine.

Cheers


----------



## med stud (May 23, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> The spell descriptions are actually very clear though.
> 
> Acid Arrow is a ranged attack with a primary target of one creature and secondary targets of adjacent creatures. It isn't an area or a blast effect. Force Orb likewise affects creatures, and is neither a blast nor an area spell.
> 
> ...



Yeah I know. It's just the judgement call I would make.


----------



## Ashardalon (May 23, 2008)

Soo... swarms are vulnerable to close and area attacks. Sleep is an area attack. Does that mean what it seems to mean?

The stormwarden attack Exploits were both close attacks. Martial characters seem to get the tools to handle swarms this time around.


----------



## Doug McCrae (May 23, 2008)

pukunui said:
			
		

> I'd just like to go on the record and say that I think it's really awesome that they used that word! Way better than just saying "they suck your blood" or whatever.



Gygaxian.


----------



## beverson (May 23, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> In Soviet Union, action points spend you.




Mouseferatu FTW!!!!!  You, sir, have won the thread!


----------



## Lizard (May 23, 2008)

Ashardalon said:
			
		

> Soo... swarms are vulnerable to close and area attacks. Sleep is an area attack. Does that mean what it seems to mean?




Don't see how it couldn't, unless there are more rules giving them immunity to mind affecting type spells. Go to sleeeeep, little dragons....sleeep....


----------



## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

Ashardalon said:
			
		

> Soo... swarms are vulnerable to close and area attacks. Sleep is an area attack. Does that mean what it seems to mean?




_Vulnerable_ does extra *keyword* damage when you take damage of the *keyword* type.  

Since the Sleep spell doesn't do damage, even though it is an *area* spell, a swarm, despite the vulnerability to *area* suffers no worse from the spell than a non-vulnerable creature.


----------



## Lacyon (May 23, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Skipping over the usual "3e was t3h suxx0r!" introduction, we get swarms that....aren't really all that different from 3e swarms. They aren't subject to forced movement from normal attacks, which is a change which is really only relevant to 4e. They're vulnerable to area attacks, which makes sense, and is also the way it was in 3e. Instead of automatic damage, they have a free attack on anyone adjacent to/within them, and I'm not sure how that is more "Ah, get 'em off me!" than the 3e auto-damage was. (3e also had them inflict conditions, such as nausea, if you were in a swarm, while in 4e, you only suffer damage. So, again, not sure how the changes meet the stated design goals.)
> 
> Looking at the 3e swarm rules, it seems 4e swarms can be flanked, knocked prone (unless that's forced movement), and affected by single-target spells, in ways 3e swarms can't. Melee attacks which do fire damage don't seem more effective against 4e swarms than any other melee attack. So, again, unless I'm missing some special interactions with the rules, I'm not seeing how the 4e swarms are "swarmier" than the 3e ones; if anything, they're more like normal creatures. And I'm not sure why 4e swarms are any less "boring" (my group must have a high tolerance for boredom, as we never thought swarms were any more boring than any other monster; I am beginning to get the impression that the 4e design team uses "boring" to mean "may cause some characters to be more effective than others" -- but this still doesn't work, as strikers and defenders are much less effective against swarms in 4e than controllers and at least some leaders -- the warlord's positioning powers are basically useless.)




I'm with you on the "not that different from 3E" angle, except for one thing: the aura means a single square of swarm attacks 9 squares of targets. Also, 3E swarms had to enter your space to do anything to you, meaning that you could typically just step 5-feet out and swing at them in melee. Heck, even against foes with reach, the 4E swarm can enter your square, which means you need a full move (provoking) to get out of the aura.

Also unlike 3E, you can end up in multiple damage auras. 3Es "have to be in the same space" thing made that - well, I'd have to look up if it was technically possible for multiple swarms to share a space with each other, but the aura means that they can overlap a whole lot more area.

Hmmm... I guess after thinking about it some more I'm not so much with you on the "not that different from 3E" angle anymore... sorry.


----------



## One Horse town (May 23, 2008)

One question that springs to mind. Why aren't Minions swarms? That would cut down on the paperwork a bit. Instead of keeping count of 10 guys with 1 or 5 hit points (or whatever), they are counted as one creature for combat purposes. As exception based design seems to be in, it would be easy to give each 'minion swarm' rules relating to their make-up. Goblin swarms, zombie swarms, etc.

Not saying it's better or worse - just that this could have been an alternative route taken to simulate larger groups of weak monsters. I wonder if it was considered at all.


----------



## Klaus (May 23, 2008)

I read the article introduction. I read the description of swarms.

They are different from the 3.5 swarms how, exactly?

- Large whole composed of smaller creatures? Check.
- Deals damage to all creatures within their area? Check.
- Difficult to kill with regular weapons? Check.
- Special effects based on the creature? Check.

The only new things are:
- Immunity to forced movement (makes sense since forced movement is a big part of 4e combat).
- Size reduced from "shapeable Large" to "Medium".

It'd make more sense if the text said: "We took the 3.5 rules for swarms and added a couple of special effects for the new types of swarms we created".


----------



## LightPhoenix (May 23, 2008)

I can't add anything more on the mechanics that hasn't already been said.  Those things look nasty.

Some people have commented on running giant swarms (ie, 100,000 insects).  In that case, I wouldn't run it as a swarm, I'd run it as an environmental hazard.  Moving near the swarm/hazard automatically causes you to take damage, as per the aura in the stat block.  You can't really beat it, so there's no real need to give it HP.  I might allow an area attack to disperse the hazard for a round, but ultimately it's an exercise in futility.

What I would do is this:

The sounds of clicking chitin against the stone behind them only drives their fear.  Pardo looks back as he runs, and sees only an overbearing, rolling tide of scorpions.  Seeing his allies lag behind, he shouts in desperation, "Faster!  Faster would be better!"  He turns and throws some alchemist's fire, but it barely slows the insects.  Still, it gives Erais and Kathra a small degree of breathing room.  That is, until several small groups left over from the fire attack the pair!  The two desperately try to beat them back, but hasty egress is their only option.  _If only we had a wizard_, Pardo thinks.

Mechanically:

The scorpion swarm is an environmental hazard - it moves at a speed of five squares per round.  The small groups would be run via the swarm rules presented.


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

One Horse town said:
			
		

> Why aren't Minions swarms?




Minions, easy to kill.
Swarms, hard to kill.

Or am I missing something?


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## Dunamin (May 23, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> I think it would be neat if fire swords and the like would do full damage to swarms. They seem like the kind of weapons that can kill tons of small lizards or insects per sweep. I think it's so neat that it will be my first house rule .



I'll wager 200 gp and a donkey that there will be a bug swarm with "*Vulnerable* Fire X" in the MM.


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

The flaming sword we saw in the preview turns *weapon* damage into *fire* damage.  

Therefore swarms would take full damage from a flaming sword.

Reread the Swarms post... they used melee and ranged as the keywords.

What about the crits?  Are those bursts?


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## Agamon (May 23, 2008)

Jeff Wilder said:
			
		

> 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"?




Isn't the point of a lot of these articles how things are changing?  Obviously the majority of readers will have played 3.5 and therefore, they lay a frame of reference.  Then they say, "Gee golly, isn't that cool," and people take it as slander towards the older edition.

Of course they're going to point out where they think they've made improvements.  Oy vey.


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## ThirdWizard (May 23, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> The flaming sword we saw in the preview turns *weapon* damage into *fire* damage.
> 
> Therefore swarms would take full damage from a flaming sword.




The text says:



			
				Article said:
			
		

> Resist half damage from melee and ranged attacks




Flaming sword is still a melee attack. Half damage.


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## Ginnel (May 23, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> The flaming sword we saw in the preview turns *weapon* damage into *fire* damage.
> 
> Therefore swarms would take full damage from a flaming sword.




ThirdWizard got there first


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Flaming sword is still a melee attack. Half damage.




Seen.     

At least the ongoing damage from a flaming swords daily isn't melee.


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## Thornir Alekeg (May 23, 2008)

Not bad.  I will echo the feeling that it doesn't seem all that different from 3e.

Personally what I would like to see are a couple of things from swarms:  

Tiny creatures such as insects can ignore armor as they crawl into the spaces and get inside the armor itself -  maybe even then use a portion of the targets armor bonus for itself.  Imagine your paladin stripping off his armor in a fight shrieking "get them off me!"

When Bloodied either the swarm's AC versus melee attacks increases, or damage from melee attacks is reduced from 1/2 to 1/4, reflecting the fact that they individual creatures that make up the swarm are more dispersed than they were.  Along with that of course the swarms attack damage should also drop by 1/2.


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> I'm with you on the "not that different from 3E" angle, except for one thing: the aura means a single square of swarm attacks 9 squares of targets.




Where as the default 3e swarm occupied 4 squares.  This isn't that big of a difference.   The biggest difference is 4 vs. 9 squares, but the fact that the 3rd edition swarm more 'swarmily' could occupy any 4 continious squares.  The big difference is on display when a swarm from either edition enters a 5' wide corridor.



> Also, 3E swarms had to enter your space to do anything to you, meaning that you could typically just step 5-feet out and swing at them in melee.




Assuming that you were 'nauseated', yes.  Third edition swarms effectively 'grab' you to prevent you from doing this.  Further note that typically, stepping out and swinging them in melee was meaningless.  You wouldn't take less damage because the swarm would just follow you the next turn.  And 3e swarms were typically immune to melee.  You can't kill 10,000 centipeeds in a timely fashion by swinging a sword.



> Heck, even against foes with reach, the 4E swarm can enter your square, which means you need a full move (provoking) to get out of the aura.




In both cases, I think you need to consider that the expectation is that the swarm is made up of several individual swarms.   So for example, a 10' corridor might be filled with 4-5 continuous swarms.  The biggest change is that swarms provoke attacks at all.  I have mixed feelings about that.  In some cases, it's 'swarmier'.  In other cases, it isn't.



> Also unlike 3E, you can end up in multiple damage auras. 3Es "have to be in the same space" thing made that - well, I'd have to look up if it was technically possible for multiple swarms to share a space with each other, but the aura means that they can overlap a whole lot more area.




Yes, but 3e swarms did thier damage automatically.  Multiple attacks versus automatic damage from one attack is probably a wash.



> Hmmm... I guess after thinking about it some more I'm not so much with you on the "not that different from 3E" angle anymore... sorry.




It's still not that different.  The 4e rules are simplier and treat the swarm as less of a special case monster (which has good and bad points), but ultimately there is nothing revolutionary about the 4e swarm rules.   I don't really care too much one way or the other.

Positives:

a) Does away with the nausea saving throw, which I found somewhat problimatic.  Though, it doesn't really replace it with anything other than the ability to make AoOs, which is also problimatic.

Negatives:

a) Swarms are explicitly defined as being made up of 'tiny' creatures.  Unless 'tiny' has been redifined, I'm guessing that this means that they aren't going to try to model swarms of say honeybees using these same rules.
b) Swarm no longer occupies an amorpheous area.  A swarm in a 5' corridor (or 2.5' wide corridor!) occupies the same space as swarm in an open room.


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## med stud (May 23, 2008)

I think the swarms of regular insects would be better as environmental hazards or traps (as someone above said). I think it would be ridicolous with people fighting 100000 bees with torches, I would like it more like a skill challenge.

The PCs enter a sealed crypt, hearing a weird sound. All of a sudden a wave of scarabs pours out from a doorway. Here the skill challenge begins. Getting away is important, therefore every round every PC has to roll Athletics to avoid damage. AoE-spells can be used, using the attack bonus of the PC instead of a skill. Each use of flaming oil or the like counts as an autosuccess. There might be other skills that I don't think about right now, but that's the gist of the challenge. The consequence of failing the skill challenge is either to get backed up in a dead end or to be chased out into unfamiliar territory. By winning the skill challenge the scarabs are dead.

It's an unorthodox skill challenge but I think it would play out nice.


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## Lizard (May 23, 2008)

Agamon said:
			
		

> Isn't the point of a lot of these articles how things are changing?  Obviously the majority of readers will have played 3.5 and therefore, they lay a frame of reference.  Then they say, "Gee golly, isn't that cool," and people take it as slander towards the older edition.
> 
> Of course they're going to point out where they think they've made improvements.  Oy vey.




Compare these two:
"Did you love Big Macs? Well, then you'll really love the Big Mac Deluxe! Everything you liked, and more! Here's what we've added..."

vs.

"We decided to try some Big Macs, and we'd rather be eating ground glass mixed with maggot puree! My god, how did we ever inflict that vile crap on you, our beloved customers? We're sorry! We're so sorry! To show you how sorry we are, we're introducting the Big Mac Deluxe. Our new motto:'The Big Mac Deluxe -- It Won't Make You Puke Your Guts Up, Like The Old One Did'."

Which advertising campaign is more likely to win over fans of your current product?

Which is more likely to make potential new buyers think, "Well, if the old one sucked so bad, can we really trust them to make a new one which doesn't?"

Or, to put it another way, which is more appealing -- a political ad which focuses on your candidate's strengths, or one which focuses on the opposing candidate's weakness? 

You can sell "New and improved" without taking every chance you can get to kick the old one. Honestly, it's looking less and less like a marketing campaign and more like developer spleen-venting. What, did Monte, Skip, and John strangle Mike Mearls' puppy or something? It's hard to focus on objectively evaluating the mechanics when the previews are wrapped in this kind of bile-spewing.

I mean, they don't even say WHY the old swarm rules were boring, they just assert it, as if it was self-evident. Well, it's not. Why not do the following:

"The old swarm rules set out to do a, b, c. They did a, but in actual play, you hardly saw b because of x, and c never worked as intended -- remember (famous gamer inside joke ala pun-pun here). So we took the core goals of the swarm rules, applied the 4e design ethos to them, and fixed the problems we perceived as follows..."

A lot better than "We'd rather be EATEN ALIVE BY ANTS than play 3e!"

The new swarm rules look cool and playable, and I have some great swarm ideas. However, they're not THAT different from the 3e rules, and actually are a step backward in "making you feel like you're fighting a swarm" -- you can flank the swarm, you can sneak attack it, you can knock it prone (I'm guessing, in the absence of anything which says you CAN'T). So the self-congratulatory crowing on how much the old rules sucked is really out of place. It's an incremental advance, at best, and its achieved at the cost of reducing, not increasing, the "swarm feel" in the name of simplicity.


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## Tuft (May 23, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Skipping over the usual "3e was t3h suxx0r!" introduction, we get swarms that....




I'm reminded of a local advertising campaign that Microsoft ran a few years back. To entice people to upgrade their Microsoft Office, they ran a series of ads that basically called anybody that had ever used their _previous_ version for unimaginative morons....


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 23, 2008)

One Horse town said:
			
		

> One question that springs to mind. Why aren't Minions swarms? That would cut down on the paperwork a bit. Instead of keeping count of 10 guys with 1 or 5 hit points (or whatever), they are counted as one creature for combat purposes. As exception based design seems to be in, it would be easy to give each 'minion swarm' rules relating to their make-up. Goblin swarms, zombie swarms, etc.
> 
> Not saying it's better or worse - just that this could have been an alternative route taken to simulate larger groups of weak monsters. I wonder if it was considered at all.



Minions are there to give you the "feedback" of cutting through hordes of mooks, killing people left and right.
Swarms give you the feedback of fighting, well, a swarm, a thing you seemingly can't defeat. You strike them, but they keep coming, and _they are in your face and eating and biting and chewing and aaaargh..._



> They are different from the 3.5 swarms how, exactly?
> 
> - Large whole composed of smaller creatures? Check.
> - Deals damage to all creatures within their area? Check.
> ...



I agree that the difference is technically not that much. But you left out one of the most important new features: The aura. If you want to fight them (in melee), you have to expose yourself to them. In 3E, you could attack them from safety with a single 5 ft step and keep hacking them. In 4E, if you want to attack them, you're automatically exposed to their attacks.

I think it should be easy to "mod" the 3E swarms to have the same effect.


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## Cadfan (May 23, 2008)

My usual random thoughts:

1. The Needlefang Drake Swarm looks... really freaking dangerous for a level 2 monster.  I mean, seriously.  It does a LOT of damage per round, especially if the PCs are near to each other, it has a LOT of hit points, and its highly resistant to the most common attacks available to level 2 PCs.  I like the monster, but it doesn't seem like a regular level 2 monster.  I mean, seriously.  Swarm moves adjacent to a PC (move action), knocks the PC over (minor action), attacks for 2d10+4 damage (standard action), then lets the PC have a turn and attacks again for 2d10+4 damage.  Seriously?  I know that not every attack will likely be successful, but, seriously?

2. This could change depending on party composition or the availability of purchasable gear.  Supposing that flaming oil is an area attack, I could see a party of PCs tearing through a swarm in a single round.  Same with a party with several dragonborn PCs.  But using only the pregens, this swarm would be a really rough fight, perhaps more appropriate for an Elite monster.

3. I hope there's advice in the DMG for how to describe fights with swarms.  In a normal fight, you beat up the monster and it dies.  With a swarm, you beat up the swarm until enough of its constituent members have died and it retreats or no longer meaningfully threatens you.

4. These swarms have really high Reflex defenses.  Which... is probably the defense you attack if you use an area attack.

5. Swarms don't need default immunity to mind effecting attacks, because not all swarms make sense as immune to mind effecting attacks.  Why _shouldn't_ all the little hungry lizards fall asleep to a sleep spell?

6. Interesting that, with swarms, location is abstract.  The swarm occupies a single space, in the sense that you have to attack that space to hurt it.  But the swarms constituent members occupy a 3x3 space, and bite you if you enter that larger area.  So basically you have to wade into the swarm if you want to hurt it.  I like this.  This is one place that the "get it off!  get it off!" feel is really accentuated.  They should have pointed this out more clearly.  Having to wade into a swarm to hurt it rather than standing next to it and swinging at it is a big improvement, to me, over 3e.

7. If you want a bigger swarm, use multiple swarms.  Simple, elegant, effectively models the "as you beat them up they get smaller" aspect of a swarm.  In such a case I'd possibly rule that the auras don't stack.  I don't know, depends on balance issues.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 23, 2008)

Tuft said:
			
		

> I'm reminded of a local advertising campaign that Microsoft ran a few years back. To entice people to upgrade their Microsoft Office, they ran a series of ads that basically called anybody that had ever used their _previous_ version for unimaginative morons....




Actually, it reminds me more of the Apple advertising campaign. Even if it wasn't critisizing its own products, the way it hit on the PC/Microsoft was similar to what Lizard is describing. (And yes, this made the poor Microsoft "persona" actually come off as a likeable guy, and the Apple "persona" a prick. Even if a lot of what they said was true.)


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> Tiny creatures such as insects can ignore armor as they crawl into the spaces and get inside the armor itself -  maybe even then use a portion of the targets armor bonus for itself.  Imagine your paladin stripping off his armor in a fight shrieking "get them off me!"
> 
> When Bloodied either the swarm's AC versus melee attacks increases, or damage from melee attacks is reduced from 1/2 to 1/4, reflecting the fact that they individual creatures that make up the swarm are more dispersed than they were.  Along with that of course the swarms attack damage should also drop by 1/2.




Best thing is... you can write those up as powers for a particular swarm.

*Infest Armour* (free, on a hit; encounter)

When the swarm occupies the same square as an armoured target and scores a hit, it can infest the targets armour.

While infesting the armour the swarm gains *Immunity* _melee_ and _ranged_ and is no longer *Vulnerable* to _Area_ and _Close_ attacks.  In addition, the swarm moves with the target if it chooses, and always has combat advantage against its target.


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## OchreJelly (May 23, 2008)

I can see the encounter setup now.

"You reach a clearing in the jungle -- ahead of you the underbrush is thick.  From out of this undergrowth a tiny lizard the size of a cat scampers out into the center of the clearing."

PC1:  "Aw, he's a cute 'lil guy isn't he?"

"The tiny lizard chirps and purrs.  It dances about on it's two hind legs precociously"

PC1:  "Lets get him.  I want this guy as my pet!"
PC2:  "yeah that might not be such a..."

Suddenly all the foliage begins to stir as 100's of the tiny lizards scurry out at alarming speed.  

-- Combat ensures --

PC1: "The needles!  I have never been is such PAIN!!"
PC3: "Gah!! They are all over me!  BAD TOUCH!! AHHHWWWHA!!
PC2: "I told you..."


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## jaer (May 23, 2008)

Klaus said:
			
		

> I read the article introduction. I read the description of swarms.
> 
> They are different from the 3.5 swarms how, exactly?
> 
> ...




So you believed that WotC was beseiged by swarm requests (swarmed by them, even) so much so that a swarm of protesters marched out to know how swarms worked?

And that they locked the designers in a room with 100,000 ants to better model swarms for a game and shoved their hands into boxes of scorpions?

If so, then I can understand whyy you believed that this was the "greatest stride forward with swarms" but if you saw those other statements as hyperbole, why would you assume that, in an article already written in an over-exaggerated tone, the paragraph about how much swarms have changed would not be an exaggeration as well.

Note this sentence alone: "Well, swarms are *cool*, but researching how we think swarms might actually work into D&D was not so *cool*."  We know the marketing team (and I'm sure Mearls!) knows the "complaint" about over-using _cool_, but he did it twice in one sentence...you don't think that was on purpose as part of a joke?

Of course "3e bashing" would be blantant.  That's the tone of the article: way over the top and not at all serious.  The worst critisism (that wasn't an obvious hyperbole) of the old version of swarms was potential boredom (a 15th level fighter or rogue or range or paladin who needs to switch to a non-magic torch to fight a swarm is not very engaged in combat.  Oh, right....at that level, you don't have a torch and swarms resist fire.)

Sure, they could have said "We took the 3.5 rules for swarms and added a couple of special effects for the new types of swarms we created" and just shown us the samples, but I, personnally, much perfer the time and effort put in to writing an entertaining and well-constructed intro.


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## Mengu (May 23, 2008)

The Needlefang Drake Swarm is ridiculously dangerous. I just did a mock up battle in a 10 ft hallway between 4 Drake Swarms and 5 characters from the DDXP, namely Corrin, Kathra, Erais, Skamos, Riardon. 500 XP encounter for five 1st level characters should not be terribly difficult. However, it was just about TPK, except Riardon ran for his life after the other 4 went down, and there were still 3 swarms. The characters used their daily and encounter abilities, as well as action points, to no veil. Skamos whiffed on 4 attack rolls the first round, and after that was targetting 2 swarms at a time, and managed to hit one a round (which is about average).

Combination of Pull Down, extra damage vs prone target, and Swarm Attack just destroyed the party. Kathra was the only one who could sometimes resist the knockdown, and so was able to stay standing the longest.

Honestly the fight against these swarms was shorter than a fight against the level 4 solo lurker dragon.

4 drake swarms were not an appropriate encounter against a party at full power. I will try again with 3 swarms, and see how that goes.


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## Lizard (May 23, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> Best thing is... you can write those up as powers for a particular swarm.
> 
> *Infest Armour* (free, on a hit; encounter)
> 
> ...




So the only way to fight it is by fireballing your own guy?

Dude, you're a bastard DM.

I like you.


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## Mort_Q (May 23, 2008)

Yeah.... well.... that was off the cuff without knowing how hard it would be for a PC to take off their armour (with or without help).  I'm not very simulationist... I like the thought of making the brave Paladin have a _get them off of me... arrrggghhh_ moment. 

Alternatively, we could have the Player and the Swarm split damage while the Infest Armour is in play.

Without numbers, it's hard to know what's balanced.  Nice and cinematic though.


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> The Needlefang Drake Swarm is ridiculously dangerous. I just did a mock up battle in a 10 ft hallway between 4 Drake Swarms and 5 characters from the DDXP, namely Corrin, Kathra, Erais, Skamos, Riardon. 500 XP encounter for five 1st level characters should not be terribly difficult. However, it was just about TPK, except Riardon ran for his life after the other 4 went down, and there were still 3 swarms. The characters used their daily and encounter abilities, as well as action points, to no veil. Skamos whiffed on 4 attack rolls the first round, and after that was targetting 2 swarms at a time, and managed to hit one a round (which is about average).




You mean that 4 Drake Swarms are a much more difficult fight than 500 XP worth of zombie minions?  This isn't possible.  The math... it's been fixed?!?!?   We've been promised that the game is so rock solid it doesn't need an experienced DM anymore.  They promised!?!?! Waaaahhhh.

Seriously, two of these swarms seem like a big deal vs. a 1st level party.  They generate multiple attacks (read, multiple actions).  They effectively have double the normal hitpoints for a creature of thier level.  They do damage per attack comparable to creatures several levels higher than they are.  And they are fast and highly mobile.  And a controller in the party seems like an utter necessity to fight them successfully.


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## catsclaw227 (May 23, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Skipping over the usual "3e was t3h suxx0r!" introduction, ...



Well, I would say "usual" is not accurate.  Mostly they have been saying that after years of play, 3e had it's flaws.  Have you seen any statement by a WOTC employee stating that 3e sucked?

Either way, the article was oozing hyperbole and they even treaded on the "cool" ground twice in one sentence.  It sounds like Mearls was having fun with all the internet rage over their marketing efforts.

EDIT:  ninja'd by jaer!

And actually, looking back as a whole, their marketing has been pretty good.  There's some serious momentum right now leading up to June launch.

My take on the swarms?  Swarms were just OK for me and my group, and once they fought their first and second swarms, they really were boring for us.  I like these swarms.  They are nasty, difficult to kill, the aura is an example of great design with regards to showing how you have to "get inside" them to deal with them.

Good stuff.  I can't wait to use them.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

I popped onto this thread to register a complaint that the needlefang looks completely unbalanced compared to what I've seen (and trust me, I'm paying attention)... and looks like I've been well beat to the punch.

Still, most things have looked okay even when slightly questionable (Hill Giant, for instance), but this one is a huge red flag, especially as a soldier with high defenses.


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## Agamon (May 23, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> A lot better than "We'd rather be EATEN ALIVE BY ANTS than play 3e!"




Erm...correct me if I'm mistaken, but Mike looked to be writing very tongue-in-cheek throughout the article.

I agree a couple early articles were bad this way, but it almsot seems like some people are searching for offence still.  Everything he states implies that the 4e rule is better than the 3e rule, not that people that dare use the 3e rule are idiots.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 23, 2008)

My thoughts now that I've gotten some (though not enough ) sleep in me:

The article itself seems very poorly written.  But honestly, that aside, I think these swarms ARE an improvement over the 3e ones.  It might take a little tweaking to get multiple swarms to move like the horrible blob of swarming swarminess that I think it should, or to add things like the nausea from "OH GOD THEY'RE ALL OVER ME,", but I think that'll only take a LITTLE tweaking, and that the overall effect of the new swarms is fantastic.

Someone mentioned earlier that four swarms was an almost guaranteed TPK.  Thing is, I don't really have a problem with that .  Personally, I think swarms are going to be used as those ancient temple traps that, ideally, you don't WANT to have to try and combat your way through - ideally, your party will go "OH SWEET JESUS" and will try to get the hell out of there and away from the hundreds of hungry scarabs.  Really, swarms SHOULD take some really creative measures to kill, as they're a completely different animal (I'm not even going to try and make a pun here) then what adventurers are used to killing.

In the end, it strikes me as vaguely ironic that the one article I find to be the worst written is the one I've enjoyed the most .  The only thing that could make swarms better is the quote of "I'M COVERED IN BEEEEEEEEEEEES," and I just made it, so BAM, it's perfect.

Side note: See you guys Monday


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## dsmith9 (May 23, 2008)

I am waiting to see a swarm of lemmings that push six squares as there only attack as they are running towards a cliff.


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## beverson (May 23, 2008)

Agamon said:
			
		

> Erm...correct me if I'm mistaken, but Mike looked to be writing very tongue-in-cheek throughout the article.
> 
> I agree a couple early articles were bad this way, but it almsot seems like some people are searching for offence still.  Everything he states implies that the 4e rule is better than the 3e rule, not that people that dare use the 3e rule are idiots.




This.


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## Alikar (May 23, 2008)

The article mentions Fellcrest for next week. What is that?


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> I popped onto this thread to register a complaint that the needlefang looks completely unbalanced compared to what I've seen (and trust me, I'm paying attention)... and looks like I've been well beat to the punch.
> 
> Still, most things have looked okay even when slightly questionable (Hill Giant, for instance), but this one is a huge red flag, especially as a soldier with high defenses.




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.


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> I popped onto this thread to register a complaint that the needlefang looks completely unbalanced compared to what I've seen (and trust me, I'm paying attention)... and looks like I've been well beat to the punch.
> 
> Still, most things have looked okay even when slightly questionable (Hill Giant, for instance), but this one is a huge red flag, especially as a soldier with high defenses.




Hmm... I dunno about that.  The thing about the swarms we're seeing here is that if you have a fair bit of area-attack firepower, they're toast, but if you don't, you're ant food.  That vulnerability 5 to area attacks will add up very fast if you're facing multiple swarms... if you have area attacks to use, that is.  And if you can keep them off the wizard long enough for him to fry them up nicely.

Also note that according to the rules, the fighter's Combat Superiority ability (+2 on OAs and stop the enemy from moving) works on swarms.  Swarms are immune to being forcibly moved (push, pull, or slide), not to being forcibly stopped from moving.  Of course, it'd be a reasonable house rule to extend that immunity to anything that affects the swarm's movement, but it _would_ be a house rule.  And Divine Challenge does full damage to the swarm, so the defenders can actually still defend.

I'll have to test it out tonght, but it seems like five of the DDXP characters should have a fair shot at taking on four needlefang drake swarms as long as they use smart tactics.  Put Kathra and Corrin in front, have them hold the swarms at bay while Erais pumps them full of healing mojo and Riardon snipes.  Meanwhile, Skamos lays down round after round of _scorching burst_.  With any luck he can catch at least two swarms in every blast.  If one of the defenders goes down, Riardon can step up to take some heat for Skamos.

Without Skamos, though, they're totally hosed.


----------



## Stalker0 (May 23, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> 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.




Remember, in 4e we don't have to be a slave to the numbers. We can just slap on an elite sticker onto the creature, and .... its done. Now its an elite, only max 2 of them for a regular combat. 

That said, I agree with people that the drake just seems way too low a level for what it does, ESPECIALLY if you add in more swarms (and we are going to add in more swarms, that's makes the most sense in many encounters).

I mean, since swarms can move into people's squares, I can easily get 5 swarms adjacent to one party member. Now with the PC having to make 5 fort saves vs prone, he's more than likely going to drop prone. So the swarms attack. And then on the pcs turn they attack again.

Let's assume they hit 50% of the time (which considering the PC is prone and the the AC's I've seen of 1st level party, I think that's completely reasonable). So we have 2d10+4 x 5 attacks (avg: 75). That's got high level brute monsters blushing!!


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

> Without Skamos, though, they're totally hosed.




Except that Skamos will still need to hit a particular swarm three times to take it out and will miss 60% of the time. 

The real winner will probably be Corrin, whose mark will chew them up from the aura attacks on other targets.

The MtG analogy didn't make a lot of sense. All versions of D&D have had monsters that were too easy or too hard or just plain stupid depending on the party makeup. This is just the most glaring example, by far... and one I feel is actually broken, as opposed to everything else I've seen that was just 'a little high' or 'a little low'.

Move up into character's space. Minor action to knockdown. Standard attack for 2d10 + 4. Target's turn... oh, another attack for 2d10 + 4. If you want, you can stand up... can't kill it with your action? Well, you can move away provoking, but shifting will still leave it next to you and it'll get 2 minor action knockdown attacks instead of 1. Etc.

Edit: Don't have time to doublecheck it could work exactly like that, so I'll concede it might work _slightly_ differently, but my point still remains.


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> Except that Skamos will still need to hit a particular swarm three times to take it out and will miss 60% of the time.
> 
> The real winner will probably be Corrin, whose mark will chew them up from the aura attacks on other targets.




Heh, I hadn't thought of that.  Does the swarm have the choice to not make its aura attack?  The description suggests it's automatic...


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## Stalker0 (May 23, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Hmm... I dunno about that.  The thing about the swarms we're seeing here is that if you have a fair bit of area-attack firepower, they're toast, but if you don't, you're ant food.  That vulnerability 5 to area attacks will add up very fast if you're facing multiple swarms... if you have area attacks to use, that is.  And if you can keep them off the wizard long enough for him to fry them up nicely.




Consider though that vulnerability 5 is great, but you are halfling the damage of your fighter/paladin/ranger/rogue. A fighter with a greatsword is doing 2d6+4 lets say, which is 11 damage on average, dropped to 5 for half damage. So your losing 6 damage from the fighter right there. Add in the ranger or rogue and that's more damage your losing. And of course, let's say the fighter uses brutal strike, dealing 6d6 +4 = 25 damage on average, or 12 against a swarm, that's 13 damage your losing!!

So unless your party is caster heavy or you can really get those swarms clumped up, the vulnerability and half weapon damage will generally balance out.

Or worse yet, swarms can go into and through your party and surround them. You have to be careful with your area attacks or you'll hit your own party.

meanwhiles, those drakes can easily kill one party member a round. And they are faster than your party, so they will catch up. They can double move with you, knock you prone, and still get damage on your next action. You can't run away from them.


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## Stalker0 (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> The real winner will probably be Corrin, whose mark will chew them up from the aura attacks on other targets.




Assuming the aura is also not hitting Corrin. As long as your attack includes the paladin, your golden. And if corrin is a melee paladin, he has to be in the thick of it to keep the mark up.


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## DeusExMachina (May 23, 2008)

Also, you can't actually block the movement of swarms because they can simply move over your square. So they could just all converge on the caster and take him down fast if you want to...
I wouldn't play them that way as DM, but it does seem like they are unbalanced right now...


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Assuming the aura is also not hitting Corrin. As long as your attack includes the paladin, your golden. And if corrin is a melee paladin, he has to be in the thick of it to keep the mark up.




It's not an area attack. They're individual melee attacks made on each target's turn. If all 5 people are huddled around it for some bizarre reason, it'll take 32 damage (24 for the dragonborn paladin) over 1 round.

Of course, they'll potentially take a bucketload of damage in that time, too.


----------



## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Assuming the aura is also not hitting Corrin. As long as your attack includes the paladin, your golden. And if corrin is a melee paladin, he has to be in the thick of it to keep the mark up.




The aura is not a single area-effect attack, though.  It looks as if it triggers individually on each target on the target's turn.  So if there are three targets including Corrin, the swarm gets fried twice per round.



			
				DeusExMachina said:
			
		

> Also, you can't actually block the movement of swarms because they can simply move over your square. So they could just all converge on the caster and take him down fast if you want to...
> I wouldn't play them that way as DM, but it does seem like they are unbalanced right now...




You can't block them in the sense of physically interposing yourself, but defender glue works normally.  The fighter can use Combat Superiority to keep the swarms from leaving her square (as I pointed out earlier, it's not a push/pull/slide effect, so the swarm isn't immune), and the paladin can fry them when they attack someone else.



			
				Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Consider though that vulnerability 5 is great, but you are halfling the damage of your fighter/paladin/ranger/rogue. A fighter with a greatsword is doing 2d6+4 lets say, which is 11 damage on average, dropped to 5 for half damage. So your losing 6 damage from the fighter right there. Add in the ranger or rogue and that's more damage your losing. And of course, let's say the fighter uses brutal strike, dealing 6d6 +4 = 25 damage on average, or 12 against a swarm, that's 13 damage your losing!!




The job of the defender against a swarm is to hold it in place.  Inflicting damage is secondary, that's the controller's job... although the paladin looks like being the star of the show here.

As I say, I still want to test this, but it seems like a party of 5 has a fair shot--if they have the right mix.  Controllers and defenders are vital.  Leaders are so-so, and strikers are more or less useless.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

I definitely like the way swarms work. I like the ideas and I even like the example monsters... I just object to the level (and possibly role) of the needledrakes. If it were higher level... potentially a brute with lower defenses... I mean, I _want_ swarms to be scary (and not boring). I just don't want it to be the wrong level for what it does.


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## DylanCB (May 23, 2008)

Ya, know, the only wizard that can deal with the swarms is the guy from KoTS. His Burning hands is the only hope the teams got. Once he gets FIre Shroud at level 3, everythings OK. But that seems sorta crazy. You pick grenade powers instead of blast and burst, you get hosed. Heck, if you dont pick the at will burst, your totally dead. Eh, the drakes are way too good for second level. YOu need a burst and blast type wizard, or the paladins challenge. 

This is the first thing I dont like about 4E. Thankfully, its the Drakes more than the stirges. By the time the Stirges come up, there should be a high enough range of powers to fight them. Multiclassing, stronger Dragonborn breath attack feats, Paragon paths, etc. The drakes seem like a screw-up, though.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> I definitely like the way swarms work. I like the ideas and I even like the example monsters... I just object to the level (and possibly role) of the needledrakes. If it were higher level... potentially a brute with lower defenses... I mean, I _want_ swarms to be scary (and not boring). I just don't want it to be the wrong level for what it does.



Possibilities I see: 
- We overestimate (how so?) the Swarms combat prowess
- R&D screwed up (unbalanced monster)
- The web team screwed up (typo)


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## Knight Otu (May 23, 2008)

That needlefang drake does look wrong.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> 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).



Without going too deeply into why Magic cards differ so much, most of the reasons (rarity, limited play, demographic appeal, iconic creature bonus, power point distribution, strategies, ...) do not apply to roleplaying games. Demographic appeal and iconic creature bonus (3.X dragons) can, and maybe a few others.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> And it's as durable as many elite monsters unless you have a ton of area attacks in the party.



Many of the stats do seem to say that this guy should be an elite, actually, except for hit points and XP. I'd be interested to hear about someone testing the swarm that way. Still the same amount of damage to deal to them, but fewer squares covered in teeth. Probably should still drop to a d8.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> The funny thing is that this is difficult to fix without changing the monster.
> ...
> It needs to drop to a d6 or something to be appropriate for a non-elite creature of this level.



That didn't seem so difficult.   Also knock 1 or 2 off attacks and defenses, maybe.


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## Stormtalon (May 23, 2008)

Am I the only one toying with the idea of scaling up a KotS encounter via adding one or two Needledrake swarms?  Specifically....

[sblock]I'm thinking the Dragon Grave encounter, and having the swarms be released by the excavations and start to attack EVERYONE.[/sblock]

I'm expecting to have 6-8 players, so it shouldn't be too lethal.  Heh.  Heh heh.  AHAHAHAHA!


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Remember, in 4e we don't have to be a slave to the numbers.




Of course you don't.  But to the same extent, you didn't have to be a slave to the numbers in 3e either.



> We can just slap on an elite sticker onto the creature, and .... its done. Now its an elite, only max 2 of them for a regular combat.




Sure, but per the rules the elite label has certain effects on creatures that have it, just as being a 'soldier' has certain effects on the monster that has the role.  If you go by the rules, making the swarms elite creatures changes thier hit points.  Sure, you can handwave away the rules and say 'they are elite soldiers without the extra hitpoints that normally implies' but you could have handwaved away the rules in 3e and said, 'By golly, I want these orcs to have an extra +4 inight bonus to hit and AC'.  

The ability to break the rules as a DM is not revolutionary.  Nor is the ability or need to break rules in itself something that says something positive about a game.


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## Mengu (May 23, 2008)

After the TPK vs 4 drake swarms, I ran the same group (Kathra, Corrin, Erais, Skamos, Riardon) against 3 drake swarms. It took a couple daily abilities (from Kathra and Skamos), and 3 action points, but they managed to defeat the 3 drake swarms. Corrin was also out of all his daily healing. A total of 6 healing surges were used during combat (3 triggered by Corrin, 2 by Eraise, and 1 by Kathra). After the combat, everyone except Skamos would need 2-3 surges to heal up to fullish HP's again.

I don't think the party could face another similar encounter after this, and survive again. So even 3 swarms seems like more than a 500 XP encounter.

Can't help but wonder if there's something missing from the preview.


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## Stalker0 (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> After the TPK vs 4 drake swarms, I ran the same group (Kathra, Corrin, Erais, Skamos, Riardon) against 3 drake swarms. It took a couple daily abilities (from Kathra and Skamos), and 3 action points, but they managed to defeat the 3 drake swarms. Corrin was also out of all his daily healing. A total of 6 healing surges were used during combat (3 triggered by Corrin, 2 by Eraise, and 1 by Kathra). After the combat, everyone except Skamos would need 2-3 surges to heal up to fullish HP's again.
> 
> I don't think the party could face another similar encounter after this, and survive again. So even 3 swarms seems like more than a 500 XP encounter.




So it seemed like this encounter took 70% or more of your party's resources. If we went by 3e logic, that's several CRs above your party's level, maybe +3.

Yeah, there's definitely something off about the drake swarms. I wonder if they are supposed to have vulnerability 10 to close and area like the stirge swarms.


I wonder if your group is willing, to give these swarms the elite treatment. Try giving the swarms an action point and a +2 to saving throws. Basically what we are saying is that the swarm is actually an elite creature, WOTC just forgot to add in some of its elite bonuses. Try running 2 of those against your party and see how it turns out.


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## The_Fan (May 23, 2008)

Has anyone tried a 5-swarm fight against the KotS characters? I wonder if the Dragonborn will make a difference with his breath weapon.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> After the TPK vs 4 drake swarms, I ran the same group (Kathra, Corrin, Erais, Skamos, Riardon) against 3 drake swarms. It took a couple daily abilities (from Kathra and Skamos), and 3 action points, but they managed to defeat the 3 drake swarms. Corrin was also out of all his daily healing. A total of 6 healing surges were used during combat (3 triggered by Corrin, 2 by Eraise, and 1 by Kathra). After the combat, everyone except Skamos would need 2-3 surges to heal up to fullish HP's again.
> 
> I don't think the party could face another similar encounter after this, and survive again. So even 3 swarms seems like more than a 500 XP encounter.
> 
> Can't help but wonder if there's something missing from the preview.




Hmm. Maybe you need better tactics. You need to run away from the drake Swarm. And you need to help your comrades. If you stand close to it, it use its minor action to put you down, and a second minor action (giving up his move action) to put someone else down. Don't allow that. Someone (maybe the Defender) should probably try to use his own actions to move any prone foe away from the Swarm, while someone else hammers it from distance or by doing some fancy maneuvering. 
Still sounds very dangerous. But the feel is totally like you'd want it. _RUN RUN RUN, help me, I stumbled, o my god, they are all over me... aaaargh_


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Knight Otu said:
			
		

> Without going too deeply into why Magic cards differ so much, most of the reasons (rarity, limited play, demographic appeal, iconic creature bonus, power point distribution, strategies, ...) do not apply to roleplaying games. Demographic appeal and iconic creature bonus (3.X dragons) can, and maybe a few others.




How is a writing desk like a raven?

They both have black quills.

See if you can spot the common ground that I think are shared by both MtG cards and the new stat blocks, other than that they both are produced by WotC.   Hint: it's not that they come in randomized packs.



> That didn't seem so difficult.   Also knock 1 or 2 off attacks and defenses, maybe.




It wasn't.  But it was changing the monster, nor am I sure that it fixes the problem (but it definately helps).  I said that the problem (XP doesn't match challenge) is hard to fix within the rules without changing the monster.  That is to say, there is no XP point or label for this monster where it is fairly costed.  It's abilities are well suited for a level 1 solo monster, not for a level 1 normal monster. 

This suggests to me that designing good 4e monsters might be harder than it first appears.


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

edit: deleted


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## Mengu (May 23, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Try giving the swarms an action point and a +2 to saving throws. Basically what we are saying is that the swarm is actually an elite creature, WOTC just forgot to add in some of its elite bonuses. Try running 2 of those against your party and see how it turns out.




Problem is, they get double hitpoints if they become elites. That would make them utterly over the top. Either they need to be limited to 1 swarm attack per round, or Pulldown needs a recharge, or there is a swarm rule, that reduces their effectiveness when they are bloodied (like they do half damage or something). Perhaps they really are meant to be this tough. Guess we'll just have to wait a couple more weeks to know for sure.


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## AllisterH (May 23, 2008)

I wonder...

what would Alchemist Fire be considered as? If it a burst/area attack, then wouldn't this be a (bad) example of not having the right gear?


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> Stalker0 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Er, no.  Stalker said the swarm IS ALREADY elite, WotC just forgot to give it its action point and its save bonus.  So it doesn't need any more hit points to "become" elite, just +2 saves and an action point (and double its XP value).


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## Stalker0 (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> Problem is, they get double hitpoints if they become elites. That would make them utterly over the top.




No, what I'm saying is think of them like this.

The drake swarm is actually an elite. Its defenses, hitpoints, and damage are already for an elite creature, its just someone forgot to add the AP and +2 to saving throws.

Basically what I'm saying is the "true" regular old drake swarm would have less hitpoints, defenses, and damage. This one is "actually" an elite monster, just someone forgot to pencil in the details.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Its hp are not an elite's hp.


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> Its hp are not an elite's hp.




But it takes half damage from most attacks.  Its "effective" hit points are therefore much higher than the raw number would indicate.

Again, I'll want to test it myself before I say for sure what I think, but if it's as tough as people are suggesting, I'd have no problem calling it elite.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

So, its attacks are high, its defenses are high, and its damage is way high. Add on swarm-ness, and it's just really badass.

I think I'd suggest changing its damage to 1d6 + 2 and 2d6 + 2, and it would probably then be a decently tough soldier. It won't instantly kill people, but it will definitely chew people up and cause problems and more than 1 will do plenty.


----------



## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> But it takes half damage from most attacks.  Its "effective" hit points are therefore much higher than the raw number would indicate.
> 
> Again, I'll want to test it myself before I say for sure what I think, but if it's as tough as people are suggesting, I'd have no problem calling it elite.




I like blue. Red is not blue, but purple is close, so I will call purple blue.

You can use the stats as is and give double XP if you want, but that doesn't make it elite.

P.S. Compare this to a kobold dragonshield, they're both level 2 soldiers, right? Also, we do have stats for a rat swarm (I don't have them on me, but someone else probably does), if we want another swarm to compare balance against. I don't remember reacting violently when I saw that.


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> But it takes half damage from most attacks.  Its "effective" hit points are therefore much higher than the raw number would indicate.




Oh I agree, but this isn't the same thing as having double hit points.  This just shows that anything that gives wide resistance to attacks to the creature effectively makes it as tough as an elite without upping the hit points.  This shows you have to be very careful with abilities that give resistance to common attack forms.

Likewise, it 'burst' ability to attack all adjacent creatures as a free action is the sort of attack ability normally reserved for solo monsters.  The swarm attack ability screws up 4e's highly critical action economy.  This shows you have to be careful not to give abilities to normal non-solo monsters that effectively grant extra actions.  

On top of that, its a medium sized monster that uses damage dice appropriate to a large sized monster, and it has ability scores for a quite uber level 2 soldier.

I have no problem saying that its worth twice the XP that it is, but that's not the same as saying its an 'elite'.


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## Knight Otu (May 23, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> See if you can spot the common ground that I think are shared by both MtG cards and the new stat blocks, other than that they both are produced by WotC.   Hint: it's not that they come in randomized packs.



They are designed as exceptions to the rule, with some guidelines. And there are a number of discrete points that they can inhabit (mana cost and type versus level and role). That point provides guidance to how it should look like, with some variance. And that variance can become a problem, if it is taken too far (Needlefang Drakes). Other breaking points can be synergies (3.x Half-Dragon Troll), or poorly-tested designs (Tarmogoyf).

Am I close?


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Knight Otu said:
			
		

> Am I close?




Give that man a cigar.


----------



## Family (May 23, 2008)

> Mike looked to be writing very tongue-in-cheek throughout the article.




But whose cheek?

Anwser me or I'll unleash a swarm of minature giant space badgers on you.

Or perhaps a swarm of invisible gnomes.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

I'm a swarm. Rawrawrawrawrawrawrawrawrawrawrawrawr!


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## Boarstorm (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> After the TPK vs 4 drake swarms, I ran the same group (Kathra, Corrin, Erais, Skamos, Riardon) against 3 drake swarms. It took a couple daily abilities (from Kathra and Skamos), and 3 action points, but they managed to defeat the 3 drake swarms. Corrin was also out of all his daily healing. A total of 6 healing surges were used during combat (3 triggered by Corrin, 2 by Eraise, and 1 by Kathra). After the combat, everyone except Skamos would need 2-3 surges to heal up to fullish HP's again.
> 
> I don't think the party could face another similar encounter after this, and survive again. So even 3 swarms seems like more than a 500 XP encounter.
> 
> Can't help but wonder if there's something missing from the preview.




Well... you're running the encounter in a 10' corridor, for one.  That's just about going to guarantee overlapping aura effects and other craziness.


----------



## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Of course, it also makes it much easier to hit multiple swarms at once. Upsides and downsides...


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Boarstorm said:
			
		

> Well... you're running the encounter in a 10' corridor, for one.  That's just about going to guarantee overlapping aura effects and other craziness.




It's probably worse in a 15' wide hall because then you can triple team along the centerline should any PC be stupid enough to get in the middle.  But of course, flanking with the swarms is going to be hugely effective regardless of the width of the corridor and its easy for them to get in a flanking position just by pushing right through an opponent's space.  I think that trading oppurtunity attacks is a win situation for the swarms.

But that is all beside the point.

A 15' wide hall (say 60' long) is not unusual terrain.  It's not like the corridor itself grants XP the way a trap or hazard might.  The fact that the encounter takes place in 'typical' dungeon terrain doesn't cause a new DM to suddenly have a eureka moment and say that the encounter is of a higher level, nor does putting in open terrain make the monsters more reasonable for thier level.   

I mean the real test would be 5 level 2 PCs vs. 5 needlefang drake swarms, right?  That's supposed to be a fairly reutine encounter which doesn't drain the party of much more than a single healing surge per party member.  Consider how often the sample modules have thrown much higher than party level fights at the PCs that they are expected to win.  I'm not at all convinced that 5 level 2 PCs can take 5 needlefang drake swarms on a regular basis.


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## Scribble (May 23, 2008)

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?


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> I like blue. Red is not blue, but purple is close, so I will call purple blue.
> 
> You can use the stats as is and give double XP if you want, but that doesn't make it elite.




I guess that depends on what you mean by "elite."  I view "elite" and "solo" status as being similar to Challenge Rating in 3.X--in other words, it's a way to measure the creature's combat performance.  And measurements can be incorrect.  That Damn Crab, for example (second monster down), is listed as CR 3, but its "real" CR is probably something more like 5 or 6, because WotC measured wrong.

As far as I'm concerned, a monster that can take the place of two regular monsters of its level, while having attack and defense values appropriate to that level (so it isn't just a higher-level monster), is an elite monster.  Whether it happens to fit the standard guidelines for elite monsters is irrelevant; there will always be special abilities that make a monster's "real" stats substantially different from what's written in the statblock.

If you have a monster that has 100 hit points, is expected to last 10 rounds in a fight, and heals 10 hit points per round, then that monster should be considered to have 200 hit points, even though 100 is the number in the statblock.  To treat it like a 100 hit point monster is absurd.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> As far as I'm concerned... To treat it like a 100 hit point monster is absurd.




Your opinion is your own and how you run your game is up to you, but you are wrong with respect to the rules. Period.

If my color analogy rang flat for you:
DDXP paladin deals 1d6 + 2 damage when he attacks.
KoS fighter deals 2d6 + 3 damage when he attacks.

The KoS fighter is clearly elite.


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

Boarstorm said:
			
		

> Well... you're running the encounter in a 10' corridor, for one.  That's just about going to guarantee overlapping aura effects and other craziness.




/other craziness


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Yeah, that xkcd was well timed


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## Boarstorm (May 23, 2008)

Edit: Nvm.  Asked and answered.


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## Mengu (May 23, 2008)

The_Fan said:
			
		

> Has anyone tried a 5-swarm fight against the KotS characters? I wonder if the Dragonborn will make a difference with his breath weapon.




I just did. Wow. I was impressed with that second level party. Used the Warlord instead of the Cleric.

The Wizard got a crazy high initiative, and opened up with a Scorching Burst, moving up closer, spending an action point, and tossing a Burning Hands. With all the bonuses between his action point abilities, and the Warlord's action point abilities, the swarms were seriously hurting. The Halfling Rogue finished off one with a Sly flourish, and spent an action point to finish off another one (again thanks to a lot of help from the Warlord bonuses despite lacking sneak attack damage on the second attack). With 2 action points and 2 activations, the threat level was down 40%. The Dragonborn went next, and caught two of the three remaining swarms in his breath, hurting one. Then the swarms went and did a bit of damage to the Dragonborn, but missed the Halfling, failing to knock down anyone. To add insult to injury, the Tiefling Warlord tossed a Scorching Burst on top of two of the remaining swarms. The rest was a bit of swinging back and forth, and clean up.

The group easily survived the encounter having spent 2 action points, 1 healing surge during the encounter triggered by the Warlord, and 4 more healing surges between the 3 wounded characters afterwords. The Warlord's Wolfpack tactics were very handy for moving a wounded ally away from the swarm, so they didn't start their activation next to it.

Now I don't know what to think. 5 Swarms against this party, did seem like an appropriate encounter. I guess as GM's we have to be careful when we throw high level critters at lower level parties. Experience values seem like a guideline, but aren't absolute. Still need an experienced GM to gauge what really is or isn't an appropriate encounter.

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


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## Darkthorne (May 23, 2008)

*Oversight?*

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


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> Your opinion is your own and how you run your game is up to you, but you are wrong with respect to the rules. Period.
> 
> If my color analogy rang flat for you:
> DDXP paladin deals 1d6 + 2 damage when he attacks.
> ...




I wasn't aware there were rules specifying the stats of elite creatures.  In fact, I'm virtually certain there are no such rules--only a set of guidelines saying, "An elite creature of level X should generally have stats in this range."  There is a template for "elite-ifying" a standard monster, but that's not the issue here.

The whole point of the "elite" and "solo" categories is to tell us how many of a given monster will provide a "good fight" against a typical party.  If a monster is incapable of taking on a party of its level and providing a decent fight, then it is not performing the function of a solo monster and I don't give a damn what the numbers in the statblock are.  Likewise, if two of a monster offer a good fight for a party of the same level, then that monster is acting like an elite even if it doesn't have "Elite" next to its name.

If the minion/regular/elite/solo system treats a creature with 100 hit points and fast healing 10 as being identical, in terms of threat level, to the same creature with 100 hit points and no fast healing, then the system is beyond idiotic.  You simply can't go by raw stats alone; the system has to leave room to consider special abilities, particularly given the exception-based nature of 4E.


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## Mengu (May 23, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> I wasn't aware there were rules specifying the stats of elite creatures.  In fact, I'm virtually certain there are no such rules




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.


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## Ander00 (May 23, 2008)

Scribble said:
			
		

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





			
				Excerpts: Swarms said:
			
		

> 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


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## ForbidenMaster (May 23, 2008)

Scribble said:
			
		

> 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"


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> 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.


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> Now I don't know what to think.




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


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

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.


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## Scribble (May 23, 2008)

Ander00 said:
			
		

> 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.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> 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.


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## Scribble (May 23, 2008)

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


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> 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'.
> 
> ...




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.


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## Thornir Alekeg (May 23, 2008)

Darkthorne said:
			
		

> 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.


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## Mengu (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> 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.




Most certainly.

Did one more test with KotSF characters at 1st level against 4 swarms (to see how different it would be compared to the DDXP group). It wasn't much different. TPK in quick order.

The biggest factors to the outcome seem to be initiative and knowing your enemy. With the second level party, if the wizard hadn't gotten initiative, and didn't know to use an action point at first opportunity, the fight could easily have gone south.

Next test, 3rd level party vs 6 swarms...


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## Ander00 (May 23, 2008)

Scribble said:
			
		

> 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.



I hope so too, but I doubt it. Given that the swarm is level 12, it's possible there is an entry for single stirges telling us their size, but i wouldn't hold my breath. Otherwise, I'd picture the new stirge to have a wingspan of roughly 1 foot.


cheers


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## Family (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> Did one more test with KotSF characters at 1st level against 4 swarms (to see how different it would be compared to the DDXP group). Next test, 3rd level party vs 6 swarms...




Believe it or not but after I went through KotS as a player, I then played the 5 PCs and all the badies by myself  

It's great for learning the rules/tactics and I can do it anytime I want, not as fun as playing with others but not without merit either.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 23, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> I wonder...
> 
> what would Alchemist Fire be considered as? If it a burst/area attack, then wouldn't this be a (bad) example of not having the right gear?




That's actually a good point.  I've always perfered the idea of adventurers erring on the side of caution and taking alchy bombs, holy water, etc. when going out at early levels.  This would definitely serve that purpose.


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## Counterspin (May 23, 2008)

This inability to reconcile additional attacks into the XP math worries me.  If this is not a typo, then swarms are going to end up being way below their actual XP value.  Additionally, it suggests that there are still developers at WOTC who don't grasp the vital importance of the economy of actions, which is a disturbing sign for the system as a whole.


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## Voss (May 23, 2008)

The drake swarm wouldn't look so bad if it was using its str bonus rather than what appears to be its dex bonus, and maybe a small die type.
How would people react if the attack was:
+6 vs AC, 1d6 +2, (2d6+2 if prone).

Of course, I don't quite see why the stirge swarm has a +4 damage bonus, since that doesn't match any of its stats (and the damage bonus has been consistently matching up with strength on other monsters so far)


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## Spatula (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> P.S. Compare this to a kobold dragonshield, they're both level 2 soldiers, right? Also, we do have stats for a rat swarm (I don't have them on me, but someone else probably does), if we want another swarm to compare balance against. I don't remember reacting violently when I saw that.



rat swarm, level 2 skirmisher
init +6, perception +6 low-light
swarm attack aura 1
hp 36, ac 15, fort 12, refl 14, will 11
resist/vulnerable as other swarms
speed 4, climb 2
attack +6 vs ac, 1d6+3 dmg, 3 ongoing (save ends)

Additionally, the kruthrik? has a swarm-like aura without being a swarm, that does a flat amount of damage instead of make-a-basic-attack.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

So, same level, lower defenses, lower attack, lower damage, and much easier to escape from.

I'm really okay with the swarm implementation (resist/vuln, aura) - it just needs to be compensated in its attack line. I think the stirge and rat swarms are fine, especially with the ongoing damages not stacking (it's possible they're even underpowered, but that's not nearly as bad as overpowered)


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## Sojorn (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> P.S. Compare this to a kobold dragonshield, they're both level 2 soldiers, right?



Massive defense, damage and special trip ability from hell out of no where.

It looks like they took a paragon monster and just reduced it 10 or 15 levels.


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## Surgoshan (May 23, 2008)

You may not have noticed, but the rats are a skirmisher, while the drakes are a soldier.  That makes their implementation quite different.  The drakes are meant to be front and center, the primary threat, while the rats are meant to come in and attack while you're dealing with something else.


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

Surgoshan said:
			
		

> You may not have noticed, but the rats are a skirmisher, while the drakes are a soldier.  That makes their implementation quite different.  The drakes are meant to be front and center, the primary threat, while the rats are meant to come in and attack while you're dealing with something else.




That's interesting... so does this mean there is an expectation built into the rules about how many you will have of each type?  You're never supposed to have an encounter with five soldiers?

...Seems wonky to me.  I mean, call them what you will, but the drake swarm is much, MUCH stronger than the rat swarm, almost absurdly so.  It deals almost 50% more damage on its base attack, and the ability to drag people down _as a minor action_ and then nosh on them for an extra 1d10 is vastly superior to a mere 3 ongoing damage (save ends).  It even moves faster than the rat swarm!  What's with that?  I thought skirmishers were supposed to be the agile, mobile ones.

You know, I'm starting to think that whoever put up the swarm excerpt just made a typo and the drake swarm is actually supposed to be level 4.


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Surgoshan said:
			
		

> You may not have noticed, but the rats are a skirmisher, while the drakes are a soldier.  That makes their implementation quite different.  The drakes are meant to be front and center, the primary threat, while the rats are meant to come in and attack while you're dealing with something else.




Correct. The rats are supposed to deal more damage (oops, much less), fight in a potentially more mobile fashion (oops, half the speed), have lower defenses (check!)... in short, they're supposed to be more fragile and deal more damage, balancing out them being worth the same XP.


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## Mengu (May 23, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> Next test, 3rd level party vs 6 swarms...




Gave the party +1 weapons and implements, +1 armor, and +1 defenses from magic items.

TPK again. Swarm got initiative. Front of the swarm attacked the front line, took down the poor paladin before he could do anything (24 pts on a crit, ouch). The rest of the swarm double moved to the back end of the party. I gave up when only one swarm was down, and only the Fighter and Rogue were standing.

For kicks I went back and replayed the level 2 scenario with 5 swarms in a jungle instead of 10 foot hallway. TPK again.

At this point, I firmly believe the Needlefang Drake Swarm is not right for its level and role. It hits like a brute and soaks up damage like an elite. The only times the characters beat the things were when they had initiative and knew exactly what needed to be done.


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## Jack99 (May 23, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> You know, I'm starting to think that whoever put up the swarm excerpt just made a typo and the drake swarm is actually supposed to be level 4.




I doubt that. All the rest of the stats fit with level 2. However, the typo is possibly in the damage section, that would make sense as well, while still fitting with the rest of the monster's stats. Except that it has +2 too much to it's defenses ofc... Maybe that is a swarm thing?


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

Jack99 said:
			
		

> I doubt that. All the rest of the stats fit with level 2. However, the typo is possibly in the damage section, that would make sense as well, while still fitting with the rest of the monster's stats. Except that it has +2 too much to it's defenses ofc... Maybe that is a swarm thing?




Well, let's compare it to the rat swarm.

Relative to the rat swarm, the drake swarm has:


+3 on all defenses
+2 on attacks
Essentially the same hit points
+3 damage on a normal attack
+1d10 damage versus prone target (and ability to knock a target prone roughly 50% of the time)
Lose 3 ongoing damage
+3 movement

Still, as you point out, the drake swarm's ability modifiers are too low to be level 4, while they are consistent with level 2.  Maybe it's supposed to be level 3?


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## keterys (May 23, 2008)

Soldiers tend to have pretty high defenses. The knockdown is good, it being hard to kill is fine... it just does way too much damage.

I think there's just a problem in the design, let's not lay the blame at whoever works the articles this time  It has the right hp and stats to fit a level 2 character... but maybe it used to be a level 6-8 brute in the dinosaur section and got reduced to 2, but only partway.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> Soldiers tend to have pretty high defenses. The knockdown is good, it being hard to kill is fine... it just does way too much damage.
> 
> I think there's just a problem in the design, let's not lay the blame at whoever works the articles this time  It has the right hp and stats to fit a level 2 character... but maybe it used to be a level 6-8 brute in the dinosaur section and got reduced to 2, but only partway.



I wonder if one of the designers will react to this? 

The Rouse or Mearls must act! Khur, where are you?


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> Soldiers tend to have pretty high defenses. The knockdown is good, it being hard to kill is fine... it just does way too much damage.
> 
> I think there's just a problem in the design, let's not lay the blame at whoever works the articles this time  It has the right hp and stats to fit a level 2 character... but maybe it used to be a level 6-8 brute in the dinosaur section and got reduced to 2, but only partway.




Ugh, I hope it didn't make it into the Monster Manual like that.  Coupled with the recent brouhaha over zombies versus goblins, I'm starting to worry.  Seems like we're getting a lot of this kind of thing.  My faith in "the math" is rapidly diminishing.


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## Jack99 (May 23, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I wonder if one of the designers will react to this?
> 
> The Rouse or Mearls must act! Khur, where are you?




Slackers are probably gone for the weekend...   

What shall we do! Will the uncertainty of not knowing if it is indeed a typo or a flaw in design kill us?

Cheers


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## Jack99 (May 23, 2008)

Actually, now that I think about it, I am thinking it is an evil plot by the equally evil mearls. 

He changed the stats in the article, knowing that the interweb nerds would rage all weekend long, trying to figure out wth happened, while he chuckles all the way to church (err evil temple).


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## Celebrim (May 23, 2008)

Surgoshan said:
			
		

> You may not have noticed, but the rats are a skirmisher, while the drakes are a soldier.  That makes their implementation quite different.  The drakes are meant to be front and center, the primary threat, while the rats are meant to come in and attack while you're dealing with something else.




The problem is that the Needlefang Drake Swarm is not only a better Soldier than the rats, but a better Skirmisher too.

As I understand it, 'Soldier' is the 'Defender' role class for monsters.  It's meant to have high defences to have powers which are 'sticky'.  I can certainly see the high defences in the NFDS, and you can think of its knockdown power as being 'sticky'.

As I understand it, Skirmishers are one of the 'Striker' roles for monsters.  They are meant to have highly damaging attacks (often ranged attacks) and very good battlefield mobility, but not be able to take a punch as well as a 'Soldier'.  

So compared to a NFDS, we'd expect the positives of a level 2 skirmisher swarm to be things like:

a) Greater mobility, but it doesn't.
b) Higher damage (shudder!), but it doesn't.
c) Greater ability to act at range, but it doesn't.
d) Better or at least comparable dodge defence, but it doesn't.
e) Better ability to assist thier allies, but they don't.  In fact, the internal synergy of the needlefang drake swarms knocking down the foes for each other is huge.

Moreover, we've been given no reason to think that 'Soldiers' are supposed to be tougher fights than 'Lurkers', 'Skirmishers', 'Brutes', 'Artillery', or 'Leaders'.  They are supposed to be different, just as the PC classes are supposed to be different, but

So what we have here is two monsters, both of which are supposed to be level 2, but one of which (no surprise, the fantastic one) is given every advantage and the other isn't.

If Needlefang Drake's were a card, they'd be blue.


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## Byronic (May 23, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> If Needlefang Drake's were a card, they'd be blue.




I'm going to note that drakes are usually blue.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 23, 2008)

Jack99 said:
			
		

> Slackers are probably gone for the weekend...



What? Now they really have the time for thoroughly analyzing the wis of the fandom (or vice versa)? Slackers, indeed!



			
				Jack99 said:
			
		

> Actually, now that I think about it, I am thinking it is an evil plot by the equally evil mearls.
> 
> He changed the stats in the article, knowing that the interweb nerds would rage all weekend long, trying to figure out wth happened, while he chuckles all the way to church (err evil temple).



Actually, I see that as a possibility. A remote one, but come on, the whole beginning of the article was totally over the top (and hilariously funny!).


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## MindWanderer (May 23, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Hmm... I dunno about that.  The thing about the swarms we're seeing here is that if you have a fair bit of area-attack firepower, they're toast, but if you don't, you're ant food.  That vulnerability 5 to area attacks will add up very fast if you're facing multiple swarms... if you have area attacks to use, that is.  And if you can keep them off the wizard long enough for him to fry them up nicely.... Without Skamos, though, they're totally hosed.



Which is exactly the kind of thing they're trying to avoid in 4e.  You should never be dependent on a single type of character.  It might be extremely helpful, but not necessary.  This is a big leap forward from weapon immunity that most 3e swarms had (bat swarms at CR 2 are just evil), but it's still poor design.


			
				Dausuul said:
			
		

> But it takes half damage from most attacks.  Its "effective" hit points are therefore much higher than the raw number would indicate.



And the article says: "Swarms are hard to hurt. Hacking at a pile of bugs with a sword is inefficient, but it's also scary to face a monster that's hard to hurt. The swarm marches on in a relentless wave. We liked that feel, and we could easily set the swarm's hit points to balance the effect."  The swarm's hit points clearly _weren't_ balanced to compensate.  I can only assume there's an error somewhere.


----------



## Agamon (May 23, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

> But whose cheek?




I dunno.  Mike's not telling where he's sticking his tongue these days...


----------



## Korgoth (May 23, 2008)

On Needlefang Drake Swarms:

So, I was thinking (shocking, I know) that perhaps they're not quite as outrageous as they first looked... depending on how you read the Swarm Attack aura:



			
				Excerpt said:
			
		

> Swarm Attack aura 1; the needlefang drake swarm makes a basic attack as a free action against each enemy that begins its turn in the aura.




I was taking that to mean that, like an ongoing damage condition, at the start of a character's turn, if he is within 1 square of the swarm, the swarm gets its free attack.  And since he will probably start prone, a heck of an attack it will be.

However, there is another plausible reading of the power, hinging on how you take "its" (it depends on what your definition of its is, apparently):



			
				Plausible Reading of Excerpt said:
			
		

> Swarm Attack aura 1; the needlefang drake swarm makes a basic attack as a free action against each enemy that begins *the needlefang drake swarm's* turn in the aura.




That is actually much more reasonable because the Proned character will have had a turn to stand up, spend a healing surge or whatever else... even get the heck out of dodge (or dodge the heck out of get, as the case may be).  And even if you stand and fight, the free attacks the swarms get will not be the double damage ones against Prone characters, and they will not get that bump from Combat Advantage.


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## Rechan (May 23, 2008)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> I was taking that to mean that, like an ongoing damage condition, at the start of a character's turn, if he is within 1 square of the swarm, the swarm gets its free attack.  And since he will probably start prone, a heck of an attack it will be.



Why would he be probably prone? The Swarm can only make 1 prone attack a round (two if it wastes a move to make a minor).


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## Boarstorm (May 23, 2008)

I don't think pronouns work that way.  I'm not a master of grammar, but it would be a real stretch to apply that "its" to the subject of the sentence instead of the subject (object?) of that clause.

Besides which, it would make the aura on swarms all but useless.


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## ForbidenMaster (May 23, 2008)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> On Needlefang Drake Swarms:
> 
> So, I was thinking (shocking, I know) that perhaps they're not quite as outrageous as they first looked... depending on how you read the Swarm Attack aura:
> 
> ...




The latter is only true if either A) Wizards messed up, or B) the rules of English dont apply.


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## Spatula (May 23, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Why would he be probably prone? The Swarm can only make 1 prone attack a round (two if it wastes a move to make a minor).



The swarm can make up to 3 such attacks, and would probably continue to make them until it successfully drags someone down.  Then it attacks with the damage bonus (if it has any actions left), and its companions play pile-on.  The way that multiple needlefang swarms complement each other is rather frightening.  It's a neat image, but the damage done is a bit out of line for its level...


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## Dausuul (May 23, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> The swarm can make up to 3 such attacks, and would probably continue to make them until it successfully drags someone down.  Then it attacks with the damage bonus (if it has any actions left), and its companions play pile-on.  The way that multiple needlefang swarms complement each other is rather frightening.  It's a neat image, but the damage done is a bit out of line for its level...




I would expect the swarm to always make one attack per round--it's not a brilliant tactician, after all.  However, it would try to drag its victim down at least once, and twice if it can manage it.

As you say, it's when you have multiple needlefang swarms that it gets really ugly, because then it's virtually guaranteed that one or another of them will make its roll to put you on the ground.  And then you eat a 2d10+4 aura attack from _all_ of them at the start of your turn...


----------



## Silverblade The Ench (May 23, 2008)

Swarms...hm, Indiana Jones... 

I like non-"BBEG" type dangers, swarms, fetid swamps with nasty diseases, etc, so this is cool: makes my DM life simpler (3.5 seriously got too much for me to DM with any fun, ugh) and should be nasty.


----------



## ZetaStriker (May 24, 2008)

So summarize swarms: play as a dwarf _or else_.


----------



## Boarstorm (May 24, 2008)

ZetaStriker said:
			
		

> So summarize swarms: play as a dwarf _or else_.




Just that one swarm, sheesh.


----------



## ZetaStriker (May 24, 2008)

I wasn't bashing, Boarstorm, it was a joke.


----------



## Scribble (May 24, 2008)

I wonder if when you have more then one swarm then the size (and corrosponding aura) increases, but the number of attacks/damage does not...

So the whole monstrosity still only gets 1 attack per person in the aura, and does the same amount of damage on that attack, but the number of people it can attack increases...


----------



## 2eBladeSinger (May 24, 2008)

Scribble said:
			
		

> I wonder if when you have more then one swarm then the size (and corrosponding aura) increases, but the number of attacks/damage does not...
> 
> So the whole monstrosity still only gets 1 attack per person in the aura, and does the same amount of damage on that attack, but the number of people it can attack increases...




I was wondering much the same thing: how to scale a swarm encounter?  Will we just add more individual swarms to the encounter, or (as they are already made up of several smaller creatures, make the one swarm larger, more viable, etc.  It seems that with swarms, as deadly as they are, perhaps it's not sporting to add more than one and that, possibly, this accounts for their deadliness at a relatively low level.


----------



## Thornir Alekeg (May 24, 2008)

2eBladeSinger said:
			
		

> I was wondering much the same thing: how to scale a swarm encounter?  Will we just add more individual swarms to the encounter, or (as they are already made up of several smaller creatures, make the one swarm larger, more viable, etc.  It seems that with swarms, as deadly as they are, perhaps it's not sporting to add more than one and that, possibly, this accounts for their deadliness at a relatively low level.



 You may be right, but then if they want to keep the math consistent, the swarm should probably be worth more XP since an encounter would in theory be against only one - bringing this all back to the idea that maybe the drake swarm should be an elite, or something else should be pared back.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (May 24, 2008)

Something that concerns me with the swarm abilities to take 1/2 damage from ranged or melee attacks is the fact that some spells like Force Orb or Acid Arrow fall into this category.  If you read the entries I've seen, it affects one target and as a secondary attack affects all adjacent creatures, which technically makes it different from burst and blast attacks.  I guess it still technically counts as "area attacks" but it's unclear whether the primary attack from those spells get halved or if the swarm takes 5+ damage extra damage as the direct target.


----------



## Mort_Q (May 24, 2008)

Kobold Avenger said:
			
		

> ...  but it's unclear whether the primary attack from those spells get halved or if the swarm takes 5+ damage extra damage as the direct target.




It's perfectly clear, you just don't like the result.

Keywords.  The keyword is ranged.  Those spell powers are ranged.  They do half damage.



			
				WotC_Logan said:
			
		

> http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4241272&postcount=9
> 
> The categories are:
> Melee—single target, doesn't provoke, attack a nearby creature.
> ...


----------



## Spatula (May 24, 2008)

2eBladeSinger said:
			
		

> I was wondering much the same thing: how to scale a swarm encounter?  Will we just add more individual swarms to the encounter, or (as they are already made up of several smaller creatures, make the one swarm larger, more viable, etc.  It seems that with swarms, as deadly as they are, perhaps it's not sporting to add more than one and that, possibly, this accounts for their deadliness at a relatively low level.



"Their" deadliness really only refers to the needlefang swarm... the other swarms would appear to be much more manageable for their level.


----------



## FireLance (May 24, 2008)

Jack99 said:
			
		

> Slackers are probably gone for the weekend...
> 
> What shall we do! Will the uncertainty of not knowing if it is indeed a typo or a flaw in design kill us?



It would be nice if someone who had the three core rulebooks could clarify whether the preview is accurate. Do you know anyone who has the three core rulebooks and would be willing to help out the members of ENWorld? Anyone?


----------



## That One Guy (May 24, 2008)

Mengu, thanks for running the tests.

I like the idea of the drakes, but they do seem overly powerful for their level. Hopefully WotC will have a fix by monday.


----------



## 2eBladeSinger (May 24, 2008)

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> You may be right, but then if they want to keep the math consistent, the swarm should probably be worth more XP since an encounter would in theory be against only one - bringing this all back to the idea that maybe the drake swarm should be an elite, or something else should be pared back.




Yes, that is something to consider.  I was thinking though of all this 'exception' based design and something in the swams entry that says  "don't use more than one swarm per encounter, simply increase the size and hp of a swarm for a larger encounter."  Because the elite rules add defense value (as well as HP) but not physical area, they might not have 'elite swarms'. I was pondering that this might be such an exception. 

Also, to clarify ongoing damage: presuming a character is attacked by stirges on both his turn (from the aura) and on the stirges turn (via standard action) and fails both saves and knowing that ongoing damage won't stack - is it still necessary to keep track of both failures (and perhaps a third and fourth if it becomes necessary).  The character would then only take 5 hp per round OD, but would require two, three, four, etc saves to eventually rid himself of the OD condition.  Am I right?


----------



## Celebrim (May 24, 2008)

Kobold Avenger said:
			
		

> Something that concerns me with the swarm abilities to take 1/2 damage from ranged or melee attacks is the fact that some spells like Force Orb or Acid Arrow fall into this category.  If you read the entries I've seen, it affects one target and as a secondary attack affects all adjacent creatures, which technically makes it different from burst and blast attacks.  I guess it still technically counts as "area attacks" but it's unclear whether the primary attack from those spells get halved or if the swarm takes 5+ damage extra damage as the direct target.




No, it's perfectly clear.

What I'm seeing from some of the play test reports running 4e, is that DMs from earlier editions are arbitrating it something like earlier editions.  I suppose that is alright, but its not necessary.

In 4e the rules mean exactly what they say and only what they say.  You aren't supposed to ask questions about them.  If the rules seem like they should cover some case, but the rules don't say that they do - it's not an oversight; they just don't cover the case.  Likewise, if something seems logical, but it isn't mentioned it's not an oversight.  It's just an exception for the sake of simple, quick gameplay.  

The error I see, which is quite understandable given how you'd treat special cases and edge cases in earlier editions, is akin to the way some players (who probably came out the D&D tradition) interacted with Magic Cards after they first came out.  In trying to decide whether something had flying, they'd look at the card.  If the picture showed it flying or it was a bird, then logically it could fly.  It didn't matter if 'flying' wasn't present as a keyword in the text, the game was treated like an RPG because - much like RPGs - each game element (a card) had a flavor and was some sort of exception with the rules.  So from an RPG perspective, it made since that birds flew even if it wasn't on the card.

Fourth edition rules - especially the rules for monsters and character powers  - have a much more gamist perspective.  They are very streamlined, very clean, and have obviously been influenced by what WotC learned from publishing MtG for 10+ years.  They just do exactly what they say that they do.


----------



## Agamon (May 24, 2008)

ZetaStriker said:
			
		

> I wasn't bashing, Boarstorm, it was a joke.




You're not allowed to joke in the swarm thread.  Mearls' grim and serious debunking of 3e in the article set the tone...


----------



## FadedC (May 24, 2008)

I wonder what would happen if you put a party against 5 rat swarms instead of 5 needlefang drake swarms. It would give you an idea if the needlefang drake swarm is broken, or if swarms in general are unbalanced at low levels.


----------



## keterys (May 24, 2008)

Should be fine - ongoing damage doesn't stack, you can run away if you need to, and they're much easier to kill.


----------



## Boarstorm (May 24, 2008)

ZetaStriker said:
			
		

> I wasn't bashing, Boarstorm, it was a joke.




Wasn't intending to bash either.  Just noticed a lot of people have been talking as if this power were tied to swarms in general instead of just the needle drakes.

Just trying to be disambiguous. 

Darn you, Wiki!


----------



## Family (May 24, 2008)

Agamon said:
			
		

> You're not allowed to joke in the swarm thread.  Mearls' grim and serious debunking of 3e in the article set the tone...




Not allowed to joke? I do believe that even Mearl's tone can't stand up to the precedent of awesome hilarity that was set back on page 5


----------



## Stalker0 (May 24, 2008)

Family said:
			
		

> Not allowed to joke? I do believe that even Mearl's tone can't stand up to the precedent of awesome hilarity that was set back on page 5




Ah yes, page 5. Now those were the days.


----------



## Agamon (May 24, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Ah yes, page 5. Now those were the days.




I remember it like it was yesterday...


----------



## AllisterH (May 24, 2008)

I'll ask again.

Does anyone know what alchemist fire falls under? The reason why I ask is that looking at the history of alchemist fire in D&D is that it is an area attack and that it has continuous damage.

Translated to 4E (admittedly, total conjecture), wouldn't alchemist fire basically mean "Game over" for the needlefang swarm thanks to its vulnerability?


----------



## Dausuul (May 24, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> I'll ask again.
> 
> Does anyone know what alchemist fire falls under? The reason why I ask is that looking at the history of alchemist fire in D&D is that it is an area attack and that it has continuous damage.
> 
> Translated to 4E (admittedly, total conjecture), wouldn't alchemist fire basically mean "Game over" for the needlefang swarm thanks to its vulnerability?




Don't know that it would be game over, but it would go quite a way toward evening the odds.


----------



## jtrowell (May 24, 2008)

Maybe auras of the same type do not stack ?

Then having several swarms near you would only give them one attack at the start of your turn ?


----------



## Jack99 (May 24, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Ah yes, page 5. Now those were the days.




pfft, nothing beats a page 8 thread, nothing.







In case anyone wonders, the page 8 thread is a famous Everquest thread: Guy posts and complains about being scammed. Scammer responds and gets flamed. Scammer's friend shows up and defend scammer. Scammer and friend turn out to be the same person, when he screws up and posts with the wrong account. After that the thread just explodes.  Quite funny  There was even a GUcomic about it, but it seems to have been lost. The boards don't exist anymore, but someone preserved part of the thread in word format, so if you want a good laugh, it's here


----------



## Lizard (May 24, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> In 4e the rules mean exactly what they say and only what they say.  You aren't supposed to ask questions about them.  If the rules seem like they should cover some case, but the rules don't say that they do - it's not an oversight; they just don't cover the case.  Likewise, if something seems logical, but it isn't mentioned it's not an oversight.  It's just an exception for the sake of simple, quick gameplay.




Grin. Over on RPG.net, we've got someone claiming the 4e rules are a "return to common sense" because he thinks you're expected to overrule the rules like this. In other words, he's claiming the designers wrote broken/incomplete rules in order to "empower the DM". Me, I'm with you. If it says "ranged", then I don't care about the fluff text; it's ranged and affects swarms as written. 



> The error I see, which is quite understandable given how you'd treat special cases and edge cases in earlier editions, is akin to the way some players (who probably came out the D&D tradition) interacted with Magic Cards after they first came out.  In trying to decide whether something had flying, they'd look at the card.  If the picture showed it flying or it was a bird, then logically it could fly.  It didn't matter if 'flying' wasn't present as a keyword in the text, the game was treated like an RPG because - much like RPGs - each game element (a card) had a flavor and was some sort of exception with the rules.  So from an RPG perspective, it made since that birds flew even if it wasn't on the card.




Ah, the days of "How can you scare a stone wall to death?" Good times, good times...

Offhand, what card had birds which didn't have flying?

(Speaking of swarms, the PCs faced murder crows (TOH 3) last night. When killed, they explode into an undead raven swarm. Oddly, no one was bored as hundreds of zombie ravens who can blind you while doing 5d6 damage without regard to AC or saves were pecking at their eyes. I guess I was running them wrong. Next time I use swarms, I'll be sure to make them more boring.)


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 24, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Grin. Over on RPG.net, we've got someone claiming the 4e rules are a "return to common sense" because he thinks you're expected to overrule the rules like this. In other words, he's claiming the designers wrote broken/incomplete rules in order to "empower the DM". Me, I'm with you. If it says "ranged", then I don't care about the fluff text; it's ranged and affects swarms as written.



Oh, well, I agree here. I would generally house rule only things that turn out to be broken (both in the "overpowered" and "underpowered" sense. "Common Sense" is only applied when the rules are ambigous. 



> Ah, the days of "How can you scare a stone wall to death?" Good times, good times...
> 
> Offhand, what card had birds which didn't have flying?



Maybe a Dire Ostrich?



> (Speaking of swarms, the PCs faced murder crows (TOH 3) last night. When killed, they explode into an undead raven swarm. Oddly, no one was bored as hundreds of zombie ravens who can blind you while doing 5d6 damage without regard to AC or saves were pecking at their eyes. I guess I was running them wrong. Next time I use swarms, I'll be sure to make them more boring.)



Contrary to popular belief, just because certain aspects of rules are not liked (be it by a vocal minority, a real majority, or specific designers), this doesn't mean you should ensure you can't take enjoyment of the rules, either. 

But, come on, a creature exploding into a swarm? That can never be boring! Unexpected things are rarely boring (except maybe unexpected boredom  ).


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## Ashardalon (May 24, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Offhand, what card had birds which didn't have flying?



Poor Whippoorwill is the offender here. Technically, Coastal Hornclaw, Darba, Hunting Moa, and Zodiac Rooster count as well.


----------



## Mengu (May 24, 2008)

Can someone point me to a rundown of the Ratswarm stats, or post them here?

Edit: NM, found it.


----------



## Ahglock (May 24, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> I'll ask again.
> 
> Does anyone know what alchemist fire falls under? The reason why I ask is that looking at the history of alchemist fire in D&D is that it is an area attack and that it has continuous damage.
> 
> Translated to 4E (admittedly, total conjecture), wouldn't alchemist fire basically mean "Game over" for the needlefang swarm thanks to its vulnerability?




It was splash damage in 3e so if its the same in 4e I'd say no, its more like acid orb then burning hands.  

  But no one knows yet, since alchemy wont be in the PH you have to wait till PH 23 or Alchemy and Doodads.


----------



## Rechan (May 24, 2008)

Ahglock said:
			
		

> But no one knows yet, since alchemy wont be in the PH you have to wait till PH 23 or Alchemy and Doodads.



It was mentioned in a Gamer Zero talk that Alchemy will be in the Treasure Vault. It works like rituals: You take a feat, and make alchemical items.

I'm pretty sure an Acid Flask would be in a PH 0.


----------



## Mengu (May 24, 2008)

Rat swarm is considerably milder (though comparing X skirmishers to X soldiers isn't entirely fair).

Five 1st level KotFS characters vs 4 Rat Swarms: 
Resources spent during combat: 2 Action Points, 1 Lay on Hands, 5 Healing surges.
After Combat: 8 healing surges between 3 characters.

Five 2nd level KotFS characters vs 5 Rat Swarms:
Resources spent during combat: 2 Action Points, 1 Lay on Hands, 4 Healing surges.
After Combat: 5 healing surges between 3 characters.

Five 3rd level KotFS characters (w/ +1 weapons/implements/armor) vs 6 Rat Swarms:
Resources spent during combat: 2 Action Points, 1 Lay on Hands, 4 Healing surges.
After Combat: 4 healing surges between 3 characters.

The rat swarms are fairly well balanced. They require an appropriate amount of resources to deal with. They can still be pretty dangerous, as at one point, I had the dwarf taking 12 points of ongoing damage, good thing he's a fast healing HP junkie. The slow speed of the swarm just about guaranteed that the wizard could dump a double scorching burst on them with the crazy warlord bonuses on the second attack. Combine this with a Divine Strength Breath attack during an action point from the Dragonborn Paladin, and stuf goes down fast. A party without the AoE options may be a bit more challenged, but using a daily power or two should get them through the encounter.


----------



## VBMEW-01 (May 24, 2008)

In our session last night (we've completely switched over for this last month since we now have enough info to get to 4th level)  I put my group of 3 level 2s (fighter/warlord/wizard) against a deathjump spider and a swarm of stinging spiders (the drakes renamed).  These critters just swarmed out of a huge chest they opened and commenced to wreaking havoc.

It was an awesome fight.  The swarm just followed them every round , taking advantage of the fact that at least two of them were generally always within aura radius and getting second strikes at the beginnings of their next turns.  I only managed to pull one of them down (due to abysmal rolls), but the effect was nasty on his next turn.  

Couple that with the spider's nasty death from above/prodigious leap combo (which often left him out of reach, on the ceiling), and it became a very memorable encounter.

They won of course, which is the point, but the immanent threat of loss was in the air (though never as close as they thought).


----------



## Mort_Q (May 24, 2008)

Just because the alchemy rules won't be in the PH, doesn't mean Alchemist's Fire or Alchemist's Frost won't be.


----------



## Spatula (May 24, 2008)

Mengu said:
			
		

> The rat swarms are fairly well balanced. They require an appropriate amount of resources to deal with. They can still be pretty dangerous, as at one point, I had the dwarf taking 12 points of ongoing damage



Apparently, ongoing damage of the same type does not stack, so no one should be taking more than 3 damage per round from the rat swarms.


----------



## Serensius (May 24, 2008)

Holy  I can just imagine a post-apocalypticish campaign in which the PCs have to survive among huge swarms ravaging the countryside and legions of undead.

Completely irrelevant to the discussion here? Probably. But, I mean, that would kick ass.


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## The_Fan (May 24, 2008)

The rat swarm damage is untyped, though. Are you sure it's not from the same source?


----------



## FadedC (May 24, 2008)

My uderstanding is that you can have ongoing 5 fire, acid, necrotic, radiant, lightning, psychic and physical if you get hit with all of them. But you can't have 5 sources of ongoing 5 physical (or 5 unamed).


----------



## Mort_Q (May 24, 2008)

Can you get ongoing weapon damage?  Like an barbed arrow or something?  Seems like you could.


----------



## Dausuul (May 24, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Grin. Over on RPG.net, we've got someone claiming the 4e rules are a "return to common sense" because he thinks you're expected to overrule the rules like this. In other words, he's claiming the designers wrote broken/incomplete rules in order to "empower the DM". Me, I'm with you. If it says "ranged", then I don't care about the fluff text; it's ranged and affects swarms as written.




Hmm... well, my preference is to go with the rules as long as they make a modicum of sense.  But if I wanted to play M:tG, I'd play M:tG.  If the rules yield totally nonsensical results, verisimilitude takes precedence for me.

Now, the interaction of a ranged fire/acid/whatever attack with a swarm is not something I feel yields nonsensical results.  I mean, you shoot a ray of fire at a five-foot-square swarm of spiders, you're not going to kill very many of them, just fry a small patch.

In fact, I'm not sure I've seen any 4E rule that I'd consider nonsensical enough to be objectionable--although there are certainly some that require getting used to.  (If you ask me, they should have renamed "hit points" to "spirit points" or "vitality" or something, to emphasize that in THIS edition, when they say hit points don't represent pure physical toughness, they actually mean it and the mechanics will be consistent with that...)



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> Ah, the days of "How can you scare a stone wall to death?" Good times, good times...




See, now that's a perfect example of something that I'd tolerate in M:tG but not in D&D.  In M:tG, it's just one of those silly quirks.  In D&D, though, I'm going to be fairly annoyed if my DM announces that the stone wall I just took cover behind has been frightened and is running away.


----------



## frankthedm (May 24, 2008)

Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins. 







			
				Divine challenge said:
			
		

> While a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack
> rolls and takes 5 + Wis modifier radiant damage if it
> makes an attack that doesn’t include you as a target. The
> target takes this damage only *once per turn.*


----------



## Jeff Wilder (May 24, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Offhand, what card had birds which didn't have flying?



I dunno about birds, but we always joked that the Frozen Shade should have Flight, or at least Hover: Able to Block Flying Enemies.


----------



## keterys (May 24, 2008)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins.




Ooh, thanks. Completely forgot about that.


----------



## Rechan (May 24, 2008)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins.



Of course, if the swarm is attacking each person on the beginning of THEIR turn, then it's taking damage every turn against the people in its aura.


----------



## FadedC (May 24, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Ah, the days of "How can you scare a stone wall to death?" Good times, good times...
> 
> Offhand, what card had birds which didn't have flying?
> 
> (Speaking of swarms, the PCs faced murder crows (TOH 3) last night. When killed, they explode into an undead raven swarm. Oddly, no one was bored as hundreds of zombie ravens who can blind you while doing 5d6 damage without regard to AC or saves were pecking at their eyes. I guess I was running them wrong. Next time I use swarms, I'll be sure to make them more boring.)




There was actually a magic card with a terror type effect that had flavor text somewhere along the lines of "Have you ever seen a stone wall drop dead from fright boy? It aint pretty". I always imagined the walls were still elemental creatures, but of course magic is a competitive card game and not a RPG so who cares.

There were lots of bird cards that didn't fly by design unless some special condition was met, like the fledgling osprey or the coastal hornclaw.

The trick with using swarms in 3e is you can't use only swarms or the fighters will be bored and have nothing to do. If they have murder crows to beat on they will be happy. But I've seen plenty of fights against a single swarm bog down to 6 rounds of everyone sitting 5 spaces from each other and passing to to the wizard. But I didn't really have that much trouble with swarms in 3e is used sparingly. I'd never want to run an all swarm fight in 3e though....that would be boring.


----------



## Mengu (May 24, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> Apparently, ongoing damage of the same type does not stack, so no one should be taking more than 3 damage per round from the rat swarms.



I wasn't sure how to handle it when it's not typed. I guess untyped is a type?




			
				frankthedm said:
			
		

> Whew, At least swarms won't be too fragged by paladins.



Not quite so easy. It says once per turn, not once per round. Since the swarm will be attacking during each character's turn, it would be subject to the Divine Challenge damage every time. However if a character provoked an opportunity attack from it, after the aura attack, it would not suffer the damage again, since it's still the same character's turn.


----------



## MindWanderer (May 24, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Of course, if the swarm is attacking each person on the beginning of THEIR turn, then it's taking damage every turn against the people in its aura.



 Yep.  Plenty dangerous.


----------



## Vermonter (May 24, 2008)

Interesting discussion.  I have a few reactions, but these are just thoughts as I have no basis for backing them up.

1 - Auras - Folks are acting like aura effects stack, but based on the logic in the rest of the game I highly doubt it.  The way these are written is confusing, but I'd expect that only one swarm could attack a character at the start of that character's turn, no matter how many are present. 
2 - Ongoing Effects - My understanding is that the same source of an effect does not typically stack.  In addition, new effects of the same type do not stack.  I'd expect that essentially untyped is indeed a type for this purpose.
3 - Paladin Marks - I read the only taking damage once per turn as being per turn of that creature.  Hopefully this is more explicit somewhere as I can understand the interpretation put forward.

Overall I do think swarms are fairly different from 3e, but I'm not sure what I think about the fact that they don't mention combat advantage at all.  Apparently two swarms can flank someone and a swarm can itself be flanked.  It may be that there are other combat advantage reasons they left it in, but I wouldn't have minded if swarms neither gave nor received combat advantage.


----------



## Yaezakura (May 24, 2008)

Well, I can sort of understand swarms having combat advantage applied against them. If an opponent is on each side of the swarm, some members of the swarm may be fending off one, and some the other. The swarm's effectiveness is therefore split between the two opponents, and thus they'd a bit easier to get a solid strike on. I doubt swarms would just completely ignore someone coming up behind him--and if they did, wouldn't he effectively have combat advantage, since they're not working to avoid his strikes?

As for swarms gaining combat advantage against someone else, why not? A swarm is as threatening as any other combatant, and it would be foolish to completely ignore the swarm while fending off another opponent. You'd still be trying to keep your eye on them and send a few swipes their way to try and get them to back off a bit, so your concentration would be split.


----------



## Dausuul (May 25, 2008)

Yaezakura said:
			
		

> Well, I can sort of understand swarms having combat advantage applied against them. If an opponent is on each side of the swarm, some members of the swarm may be fending off one, and some the other. The swarm's effectiveness is therefore split between the two opponents, and thus they'd a bit easier to get a solid strike on. I doubt swarms would just completely ignore someone coming up behind him--and if they did, wouldn't he effectively have combat advantage, since they're not working to avoid his strikes?
> 
> As for swarms gaining combat advantage against someone else, why not? A swarm is as threatening as any other combatant, and it would be foolish to completely ignore the swarm while fending off another opponent. You'd still be trying to keep your eye on them and send a few swipes their way to try and get them to back off a bit, so your concentration would be split.




Of course, it starts getting a little shaky when you try to justify the rogue being able to sneak attack a swarm...


----------



## Mort_Q (May 25, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Of course, it starts getting a little shaky when you try to justify the rogue being able to sneak attack a swarm...




Nasty buggers... it's all about precision, patience, and quick reflexes.... wait for it.... wait for it... NOW...

The dagger flashes into the whirling maelstrom of X and comes back out with a respectable specimen impaled on its tip.  

That's one!  Far too many to go.  Where's that blasted Wizard?


----------



## Doug McCrae (May 25, 2008)

Lizard said:
			
		

> Over on RPG.net, we've got someone claiming the 4e rules are a "return to common sense" because he thinks you're expected to overrule the rules like this. In other words, he's claiming the designers wrote broken/incomplete rules in order to "empower the DM".



Old school.


----------



## Duelpersonality (May 25, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Of course, it starts getting a little shaky when you try to justify the rogue being able to sneak attack a swarm...



Here's a bit of a question:  a rogue's sneak attack comes on a melee or ranged attack, so does the SA damage also get cut in half?


----------



## keterys (May 25, 2008)

Indeed it'd be halved... clearly, though, he's darting in and stabbing repeatedly into a ton of them that are facing the other way.


----------



## robertliguori (May 25, 2008)

Vermonter said:
			
		

> Interesting discussion.  I have a few reactions, but these are just thoughts as I have no basis for backing them up.
> 
> 1 - Auras - Folks are acting like aura effects stack, but based on the logic in the rest of the game I highly doubt it.  The way these are written is confusing, but I'd expect that only one swarm could attack a character at the start of that character's turn, no matter how many are present.
> 2 - Ongoing Effects - My understanding is that the same source of an effect does not typically stack.  In addition, new effects of the same type do not stack.  I'd expect that essentially untyped is indeed a type for this purpose.
> ...




So, take a monster Foo with a Foo aura that inflicts 1d6 damage and 5 Foo damage (save ends).  Take a Bar monster, with a Bar aura.  Assuming that Foo and Bar are equivalent in rarity and resistability, the monsters Foo and Bar should be equivalently XP'd.  However, an encounter that has a Foo and a Bar will be much harder than just a Foo or just a Bar.  This bodes ill for the vaunted XP system's predictive capacity.


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## Hussar (May 25, 2008)

robertliguori said:
			
		

> So, take a monster Foo with a Foo aura that inflicts 1d6 damage and 5 Foo damage (save ends).  Take a Bar monster, with a Bar aura.  Assuming that Foo and Bar are equivalent in rarity and resistability, the monsters Foo and Bar should be equivalently XP'd.  However, an encounter that has a Foo and a Bar will be much harder than just a Foo or just a Bar.  This bodes ill for the vaunted XP system's predictive capacity.




Not really.  A creature with an ongoing aura will do less direct damage (most likely).  So, if I have two different auras up, I'm doing less direct damage overall.  A creature with an aura tied to a leader style creature, for example, will create an encounter where the leaders abilities synergize with the aura creature.  The two aura creatures simply do two separate types of aura damage - potent perhaps, but, lacking any synergy.

So, an encounter with 5 brute swarms would be equally challenging to an encounter with 3 brute swarms, an artillery and a leader simply because the other types give different, but equally effective bonuses.

The problem, RobertL is that you are only looking at a small part of the encounter - 2 swarms.  An encounter should have 5 parts, not two.


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## Rechan (May 25, 2008)

If a Foo and a Bar have an overlapping aura, then wouldn't the Foo and Bar be doing damage to eachother?


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## keterys (May 25, 2008)

Not if it's an aura 1 and they're 2 spaces apart... with a chunky PC sammich in the middle.


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## Rechan (May 25, 2008)

keterys said:
			
		

> Not if it's an aura 1 and they're 2 spaces apart... with a chunky PC sammich in the middle.



I'd say then that it depends on what they are. Some creatures may not play nice together.


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## FadedC (May 25, 2008)

robertliguori said:
			
		

> So, take a monster Foo with a Foo aura that inflicts 1d6 damage and 5 Foo damage (save ends).  Take a Bar monster, with a Bar aura.  Assuming that Foo and Bar are equivalent in rarity and resistability, the monsters Foo and Bar should be equivalently XP'd.  However, an encounter that has a Foo and a Bar will be much harder than just a Foo or just a Bar.  This bodes ill for the vaunted XP system's predictive capacity.




Just like 2 defender monsters, a leader an artilery and a controller are going to be tougher then 5 defenders types. It's assumed that DMs will mix and match for optimal power.

With that being said, I doubt the xp system will work pefectly by any stretch. But it doesn't take much to be better then CR.


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## Yaezakura (May 25, 2008)

I think the big problem is the fact the testers are putting a balanced party up against 5 of the same role, a situation that SHOULD be very rare in the game, for the reasons the playtests have shown. Sure, a single-role group has weaknesses and lacks effectiveness in some areas. But they do their primary job and play to their strengths frighteningly well.

I think the situation would be a lot different if the party the 5 swarms were going up against included level 2 characters consisting of 2 wizards, 2 dragonborn who time their breaths to hit the max number reasonable, and a Cleric or Warlord. They'd then be one heavily specialized group fighting another heavily specialized group, not a specialized group taking on a balanced force (which almost always ends in the specialized group winning, because the balanced force doesn't have enough of the proper kind of firepower to deal with the threat).

Alternatively to that, I want to see a normal balanced level 2 party fight an encounter that includes only one or two Needlefang Drake Swarms supported by level 2 creatures of other roles. I have a feeling the results will be far less terrifying than the ones we've seen so far.


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## robertliguori (May 25, 2008)

FadedC said:
			
		

> Just like 2 defender monsters, a leader an artilery and a controller are going to be tougher then 5 defenders types. It's assumed that DMs will mix and match for optimal power.
> 
> With that being said, I doubt the xp system will work pefectly by any stretch. But it doesn't take much to be better then CR.




I greatly question this assertion.  Depending on the specific monsters and specific situation, different tactics will dominate.  Leaders boost the damage output of other monsters in an encounter, either directly with buffs, or indirectly by making the monsters last longer (and take more swings, therefore doing more damage).  If the amount of damage boost a leader grants is less than the difference between the leader's damage and a brute's damage, then adding a brute instead of a leader will be better.

Besides, we've already seen problematic design imbalances.  Swarms, for instance, can only be effectively fought with area attacks; a group of five swarms with complementary abilities (needlefang swarms, for instance) that are directed to endure the Defender's attacks and focus their fire on leaders until the leaders are beyond healing, then focus on anyone who demonstrates area attack potential, and then have the surviving swarms mop up the rest of the party, seem to be a pretty optimal strategy.

Of course, such an encounter would fall very quickly and embarrasingly to a party that had five controllers specializing in area attacks.  That party would itself suffer at the hands of a high-defense solo with Resist.  That same solo would squish rapidly if dogpiled by five Defenders, and those defenders stand a good chance of being attritioned to death by the swarms, on account of their resistance to the general Defender bag of tricks.

Again, I question the XP pool method of generating encounters.  A monster or encounter that is vulnerable to a particularly squishy class, resistant to other classes, and can inflict significant damage is superior; it can focus fire on its weakness until squish has been acheieved, then sit back and let its numbers carry the day from there on out.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 25, 2008)

robertliguori said:
			
		

> I greatly question this assertion.  Depending on the specific monsters and specific situation, different tactics will dominate.  Leaders boost the damage output of other monsters in an encounter, either directly with buffs, or indirectly by making the monsters last longer (and take more swings, therefore doing more damage).  If the amount of damage boost a leader grants is less than the difference between the leader's damage and a brute's damage, then adding a brute instead of a leader will be better.
> 
> Besides, we've already seen problematic design imbalances.  Swarms, for instance, can only be effectively fought with area attacks; a group of five swarms with complementary abilities (needlefang swarms, for instance) that are directed to endure the Defender's attacks and focus their fire on leaders until the leaders are beyond healing, then focus on anyone who demonstrates area attack potential, and then have the surviving swarms mop up the rest of the party, seem to be a pretty optimal strategy.
> 
> ...



What's your suggestion on how to build encounters? 
CRs were imprecise and insufficient. XP pools and monster rules are not enough, either. So what do you do? (I don't expect you to have in answer soon. Identifying flaws and fixing them are two different tasks, unfortunately.)

But I think the 4E system as a whole is a lot more helpful.
- You have player character roles. 
- You have monster roles.
- You have monster "weights" (Minion to Solo)
- You have expected XP values
- You have monster levels comparable to PC levels.

If you have an unbalanced party, you can first try to create mixes of monsters with roles that fit the party (whether you want it to be a hard fight or a "fair" fight is up to you, but at least you know which dials you have to move). Then you can mix and match monsters to get the expected XP values, taking into account monster levels so that the monsters are in the ballpark of the PCs.

The think 4E still doesn't fix is that, if you want to create a published adventure that is to be used for many parties of unknown composition, you can only assume a "standard" party (consisting of balanced roles). Still, the monster descriptions itself give the DM using the adventure hints on how the encounters might work against his PCs and what he might have to look out for. 

The system is not perfect. It's not really true that encounters of the same XP value are actually equally different, because that depends on the roles of PCs and monsters involved. But it gives you a lot more ways to adjudicate the actual difficulty for a given party and a a given set of monsters.


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## Stalker0 (May 25, 2008)

robertliguori said:
			
		

> This bodes ill for the vaunted XP system's predictive capacity.




Considering how simple the model is, you can't expect genius results all the time. You are taking a tremendous amount of information and putting it all down as one number. That can only be so good.

DMs have to be a bit smarter than that. If they build a party of aura guys that give all of them massive buffs, they'll have to factor in a lot XP. If they have 2 guys whose auras hurt each other, that lowers the xp a bit.

But hopefully the XP range a party can typically handle is large enough for such adjustments aren't often necessary. If a dm throws a normal xp encounter at his party, and due to synergies in abilities the encounter is actually tougher, that should be okay. The party spends a few additional resources but is otherwise fine. Its only when you push the XP number near the danger zone where the synergistic bump in difficulty should be a true problem.


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## robertliguori (May 25, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> What's your suggestion on how to build encounters?
> CRs were imprecise and insufficient. XP pools and monster rules are not enough, either. So what do you do? (I don't expect you to have in answer soon. Identifying flaws and fixing them are two different tasks, unfortunately.)
> 
> But I think the 4E system as a whole is a lot more helpful.
> ...




The best solution I've seen is a series of tables, that indicate that a monster of level N has as an expected damage output, defenses, and the like, at as high a level as possible (possibly expressed average damage output per round and number of rounds of expected survival), akin to M&MM's power levels.  Monsters could flip into and out of levels as circumstances changed; a swarm would be a low-level challenge against a party that was strong in area-effects, and a high-level challenge against a party that was weak.  The existing system will probably work fine if you don't question its assumptions, and have a five-man party with all roles covered and a small amount of tactical synergy between the PCs, but when people start noticing "Hey, this party set up lets us Ginsu through 85% of encounters and gives us a 50% shot of surviving running away from the remaining 15%,", you'll get a lot less voluntary role-covering.  The current XP system with rules for adjudicating an over- or underabaundance of any given role in terms of effective level adjustment would be a good thing.

I'd also like the roles to be a bit more abstract, but to include firm ideas on how to port creatures between them.  I'd much like some generic advice on turning generic monsters into minions, elites, and solos than a list of monsters hard-coded into a particular value.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 25, 2008)

robertliguori said:
			
		

> The best solution I've seen is a series of tables, that indicate that a monster of level N has as an expected damage output, defenses, and the like, at as high a level as possible (possibly expressed average damage output per round and number of rounds of expected survival), akin to M&MM's power levels.



Why are you forcing me to seriously consider buying yet another rulebook I'll never use just to see what you're talking about! 



> I'd also like the roles to be a bit more abstract, but to include firm ideas on how to port creatures between them. I'd much like some generic advice on turning generic monsters into minions, elites, and solos than a list of monsters hard-coded into a particular value.



Hmm. I think this advice actually exists. Pick the numbers from the table for [weight] [role] for monster, and slap on special monster attack A - D as found in the stat block of the base monster. (Shifty for Kobolds, Hobgoblin Resilience for Hobgoblins, and so on). Might not be what we would expect after 3E monster creation, but it seems to get the results you want.


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## Korgoth (May 25, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> The think 4E still doesn't fix is that, if you want to create a published adventure that is to be used for many parties of unknown composition, you can only assume a "standard" party (consisting of balanced roles). Still, the monster descriptions itself give the DM using the adventure hints on how the encounters might work against his PCs and what he might have to look out for.
> 
> The system is not perfect. It's not really true that encounters of the same XP value are actually equally different, because that depends on the roles of PCs and monsters involved. But it gives you a lot more ways to adjudicate the actual difficulty for a given party and a a given set of monsters.




I don't even think it's a fixable 'problem'.  There will always be some form of rock-paper-scissors interplay.  In wargaming, for instance, a lot of games are point-based (both sides get X amount of points, which are supposedly balanced).  But even if they are balanced relative to possible choices from the lists, not every force will be balanced against every other.  The guy who shows up with a 1500 Tigerkompanie is going to mulch a guy who shows up with 1500 points of Cromwells.  Why?  Because they're both more or less one-trick ponies, except one guy's pony is a Shire horse.  Likewise, a list that does 2 things well and everything else mediocre is more balanced but can still run into a list that stands up to those two things well enough to exploit the third, and so on.  That doesn't mean that they're not balanced.  It just means that every point-balanced force does not have a 50/50 shot against every other point-balanced force.  The balance was in the options available, not in what you ultimately decided to field.

It's inevitably going to be the same in D&D.  The Needlefang Drake Swarm, no matter how one interprets the exact function of the aura, is extremely tough, especially against a party heavy on martial strikers (since their damage is halved versus the swarm).  A party of 5 rangers or rogues would be eaten alive!  But a party with a couple of Dwarven paladins and 3 blast-happy wizards will fare much better, I would expect.  But in other situations, they won't work as well.


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## Stalker0 (May 25, 2008)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> It's inevitably going to be the same in D&D.  The Needlefang Drake Swarm, no matter how one interprets the exact function of the aura, is extremely tough, especially against a party heavy on martial strikers (since their damage is halved versus the swarm).  A party of 5 rangers or rogues would be eaten alive!  But a party with a couple of Dwarven paladins and 3 blast-happy wizards will fare much better, I would expect.  But in other situations, they won't work as well.




A dm also has to take his party into account when determining encounters. That said, the basic design premise of 4e is that party has a leader, defender, striker, and controller...and the game system is designed with that in mind.

A level 2 party against a number of drake swarms will get TPKed often, as we have seen earlier in this thread with playtest results. That's not a level 2 encounter. Now, if the aura does not stack I think that will help a lot. Most people aren't worried about a single swarm as much as what happens when you have lots of them.

However, I am curious how 2 paladins and 3 wizards would do against 5 drake swarms. On the one hand, wizards obviously can do more damage. But on the other, they have lower fort saves, so easier to prone, and with the damage the drakes are pumping out, they can flat out kill a wizard in one round. And the paladin's marks only are effective is the swarm attacks somone else, but for a melee paladin to mark the creature he needs to be in melee with it, meaning he's taking the aura. And as long as the aura hits the paladin, the swarm doesn't take mark damage.


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## Dausuul (May 25, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> And as long as the aura hits the paladin, the swarm doesn't take mark damage.




Not true.  Read it again.  The aura isn't one simultaneous attack hitting everyone in range, it's a series of distinct attacks, each one occurring at the start of the turn of whoever's being attacked.  And it's not clear that the swarm even has the option to not execute that attack; which means the best way to take on swarms might be with a party of 5 paladins.


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## Stalker0 (May 25, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Not true.  Read it again.  The aura isn't one simultaneous attack hitting everyone in range, it's a series of distinct attacks, each one occurring at the start of the turn of whoever's being attacked.  And it's not clear that the swarm even has the option to not execute that attack; which means the best way to take on swarms might be with a party of 5 paladins.




I'll concede that point then. Against 5 paladins, it then comes down to attrition. I hit the paladin for massive damage, it gets mark damage on me, and use lay on hands to heal himself back. I think a group of paladins would have a problem if the swarm got grouped and were able to hit multiple paladins with their aura. If the swarm hits 2 dropped paladins and is taking 6-8 damage teh swarm comes out ahead. But paladins have higher fort saves too. I think that would be an interesting fight.


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## Rechan (May 25, 2008)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> I'll concede that point then. Against 5 paladins, it then comes down to attrition.



Except that a single monster is marked by the last mark placed on it; you could have 50 paladins, but the swarm would only be marked by one guy at a time.


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## Stalker0 (May 25, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Except that a single monster is marked by the last mark placed on it; you could have 50 paladins, but the swarm would only be marked by one guy at a time.




That's why you 5 paladins each mark 1 swarms. 5 paladins, 5 swarms, all of them marked.


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## Nytmare (May 25, 2008)

Exsanguinate is the new defenestrate.


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## Rechan (May 25, 2008)

Nytmare said:
			
		

> Exsanguinate is the new defenestrate.



Defenestrate will never be... defenestrated.


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## The_Fan (May 28, 2008)

*puts on necroposter's robes*

Arise, foul post, ARISE!

Anyway, having seen the books myself, I think that the largest problem with the drakes is not a problem at all: Auras do not stack, so if two drake swarms are adjacent to the target, you only roll the best attack roll between them.

Removes SOME of their broken.


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## bryantsonnier (Apr 19, 2011)

One Horse town said:


> One question that springs to mind. Why aren't Minions swarms? That would cut down on the paperwork a bit. Instead of keeping count of 10 guys with 1 or 5 hit points (or whatever), they are counted as one creature for combat purposes. As exception based design seems to be in, it would be easy to give each 'minion swarm' rules relating to their make-up. Goblin swarms, zombie swarms, etc.
> 
> Not saying it's better or worse - just that this could have been an alternative route taken to simulate larger groups of weak monsters. I wonder if it was considered at all.




thought you might like this very much on the same lines.  

http://trollitc.com/2010/09/mass-combat-with-dd-4e-formations-as-swarms/

Mass Combat with D&D 4e ? The War at Large|Troll in the Corner

As far as minions eh there really isn't enough to constitute swarm because most battles take place on a scale of 20x20 squares and thats on the high side, being swarmed by a 4x4 square of zombies would probably constitue 8 twelve zombies and now they're forced to act as a unit and not individual. ( you could have zombie minions with a "zombie horde" effect that when adjacent to three or more zombies gain Aura 1 for like 5 damage or basic attack)


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## twilsemail (Apr 19, 2011)

Are there any clerics in the house?  We need some Turn Undead before the Thread-Zombie bites someone...


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 20, 2011)

This is why I like the "Go to first new post" button.


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## Aegeri (Apr 20, 2011)

The greatest thing about this thread is that people within a handful of posts who hadn't played 4E, correctly figured out the needlefang drake swarm was utterly brutal on just looking at it. Heck, even now with 2 years of player crunch it would still be bloody ridiculous. Of course monster vault beat it with a stick into line (it may have even been errata'ed too).

_Now *that* deserves an achievement_.


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