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In 3.5, there were two places with info about swarms. One was in the subtype section, and the Bestiary has copied this more or less verbatim.
The other place was in the entry called Swarms, where all the swarms were plopped together. The bestiary puts the swarms in alpha order, so there is no similar section.
Most of what was in the second spot was a repeat of the first, however this section is not. As a result, these rules have been evicted from the Pathfinder game. I'm assuming by oversight instead design.
Vulnerabilities Of SwarmsSwarms are extremely difficult to fight with physical attacks. However, they have a few special vulnerabilities, as follows:
A lit torch swung as an improvised weapon deals 1d3 points of fire damage per hit.
A weapon with a special ability such as flaming or frost deals its full energy damage with each hit, even if the weapon’s normal damage can’t affect the swarm.
A lit lantern can be used as a thrown weapon, dealing 1d4 points of fire damage to all creatures in squares adjacent to where it breaks.
Without reinstating these rules, my group would have been killed by bats. Very embarrassing.
For instance, a torch only does 1 pt of fire damage, therefore it does 1.5 aka 1 pt to swarm. Not sure what the rules for lanterns under other circumstances are.So which was it, oversight or design?
Design. Swarms are tough news, and there needs to be some cheap and affordable ways for low level characters to have a chance against low level swarms. Increasing the torch damage is one of those.
Uh, what?
Design = We took out those rules because swarms are too easy if torches can do 1d3 damage.
Oversight = We neglected to include those rules from 3.5. Hello, errata.
Design. Swarms are tough news, and there needs to be some cheap and affordable ways for low level characters to have a chance against low level swarms. Increasing the torch damage is one of those.
My level 6 group encountered (via a special curse on our rogue who had pissed off a deity, who all have more reach into the world in this campaign) 8... beetle swarms? Some sort of swarm. 8 of them. 20 HP a pop, which we liked to think of as 20 beetles per swarm. We were out of spells and the only torch available was an everburning torch. We tried to hit-and run them, but they were smashing us to pieces exponentially faster than we were killing them. The warrior ran up to them and covered them (5ft squares at a time - aka one swarm) in oil and did d3 damage when she lit them. That was currently the best option we had. It was taking a very long time at the table, and all the PCs were getting an absolute spanking and the players were getting bored.
In the end, the strategy we used was simple once someone decided it wasn't worth the cost of arrows. We move faster than the swarms, we were outside. After the second round of running away, finding and throwing a rock for improvised throw damage, the DM declared the combat over automatically, with a sigh.
I've had characters die a pointless and useless death, I've had sessions that seem to drag on (first time seeing social combat was interesting. I enjoy it now, though) and I've had days where you just want the game to finish so you can go home.
Swarm fights are the only time in Pathfinder where I am not having any fun at all.
The main reason I posted this is to give you some feedback, which I MASSIVLEY appreciate you taking the time to do around these forums. I'm barely on these forums and I notice.
On a lesser level, I must also be snide and ask; Was the above REALLY the intention? Rock throwing.
P.S. I realise 8 swarms is a bit much, but it highlights the issue
P.P.S. To OP's title; throw rocks and run away.
P.P.S. To OP's title; throw rocks and run away.
Obviously, throwing rocks (unless you are a giant hurling boulders) is ineffective and your DM was just handwaving to get out of an encounter that had become boring and annoying. I nearly did the same.
I'm going to choose to interpret James' opaque comment as evidence that the vulnerabilities of swarms rules were left out by oversight and add it to the errata thread.
We recently had an impromptu adjudication of color-spray vs a swarm. Each individual critter in the swarm is << 1 HD, but the swarm itself had >> 1 HD. In this case it was spiders. They must have been individually tiny, because the DM was keeping track of weapon damage (but this could just have been DM misdirection).
By RAW the entire swarm makes a save as a unit and all critters in it affected the exact same way. Color spray can affect ANY number of creatures (no limit specified in the spell) but since the spell doesn't do any actual DAMAGE, the "Half-again" from area effects doesn't apply.
Where the adjudication (and departure from RAW came in) was in the effects. The swarm was large enough to have several hit die, but we had 1 HD worth affected as such, the second HD worth affected as a 2H creature, the third as a 3HD creature, etc. Fortunately, the swarm was not big enough to have any members in the 5HD range.
Edit: Affects vs Effects (gah!)
Where the adjudication (and departure from RAW came in) was in the effects. The swarm was large enough to have several hit die, but we had 1 HD worth affected as such, the second HD worth affected as a 2H creature, the third as a 3HD creature, etc. Fortunately, the swarm was not big enough to have any members in the 5HD range.
That seems like a great way to approach it.
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I haven't got my Bestiary yet, but one thing I really hope has changed with swarms is the assumption that they all take up 4 squares.
This is really clunky, due to the fact that they can mingle with each other, or be bisected by spell effects or rivers of flaming oil, and trying to justify which square of creatures officially belongs to which swarm, or why that one square of mindless creatures would try to keep coherency with that other specific square of mindless creatures gets messy.
Better to split the hp/square, and have each swarm be one squares-worth of creatures. It also means that damage reduces the effective size of the swarm more quickly.
Eg, instead of needing to deal 12 damage to make 4 squares suddenly collapse, each 3 damage reduces the swarm by one square.
This means one lucky hit with a torch each round could stem the tide, and lead to less potential attacks, as you make a fighting retreat.
It means tracking the hp of each single counter, but in large swarms, that's far easier than trying to keep track of which square belongs to each swarm, as they move around. And in most cases, you don't have to track hp, since the individual counters will be taken off more often.
It also removes the current odd effects of area spells.
As per 3.5 RAW, if you cast Burning Hands, and catch 4 squares of beetles, you get a totally different result, depending on which swarm those specific beetles belonged to. If they were all from one swarm, that's all you kill. If they were the lead representatives of four different swarms, you could potentially kill all four swarms (16 squares) with the same shot. Which is counter-intuitive.
And for tougher swarms, with higher hp, shouldn't catching multiple squares count as multiple hits, thus multiple damage? That 1d4/2d4 Burning Hands might then be enough to clear some squares for a getaway, whereas ruling it as 'one single hit' would do very little.
If it hasn't changed, I'd recommend 'the one-square swarm' as a house-rule. It keeps them dangerous, but managable, and reduces DM workload.
(and they can split off and chase the PCs in eight different directions!)
We recently had an impromptu adjudication of color-spray vs a swarm. Each individual critter in the swarm is << 1 HD, but the swarm itself had >> 1 HD. In this case it was spiders. They must have been individually tiny, because the DM was keeping track of weapon damage (but this could just have been DM misdirection).
The DM could have saved himself a whole bunch of headache by remembering that spiders, as vermin, are immune to mind effects, which includes color spray. I'm just sayin'... :)
Creative Director
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| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
P.P.S. To OP's title; throw rocks and run away.Obviously, throwing rocks (unless you are a giant hurling boulders) is ineffective and your DM was just handwaving to get out of an encounter that had become boring and annoying. I nearly did the same.
I'm going to choose to interpret James' opaque comment as evidence that the vulnerabilities of swarms rules were left out by oversight and add it to the errata thread.
My "opaque comment" is probably caused by me misunderstanding exactly what it was you were asking about. Go ahead and post it to the errata thread.
We recently had an impromptu adjudication of color-spray vs a swarm. Each individual critter in the swarm is << 1 HD, but the swarm itself had >> 1 HD. In this case it was spiders. They must have been individually tiny, because the DM was keeping track of weapon damage (but this could just have been DM misdirection).The DM could have saved himself a whole bunch of headache by remembering that spiders, as vermin, are immune to mind effects, which includes color spray. I'm just sayin'... :)
Musta been special spiders, 'cause the Big Bad was using mind-affecting magic to control them. Hive mind ? I'm not privy to whatever the module said about them.
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Funny enough, I don't think swarms are tough enough when it comes to swarms of tiny creatures, I changed it further that only bludgeoning weapons deal half damage to those swarms and slashing and piercing deals 1 damage. Granted I already used the rules on torches against swarms and such, but IMO swarms should be to melee guys what golems are to magic users.
Funny enough, I don't think swarms are tough enough when it comes to swarms of tiny creatures, I changed it further that only bludgeoning weapons deal half damage to those swarms and slashing and piercing deals 1 damage. Granted I already used the rules on torches against swarms and such, but IMO swarms should be to melee guys what golems are to magic users.
The really tough swarms (for low-level characters) are the ones that are immune to weapons. The bat swarm is the worst, IMO.
The bat swarm does not need to be made tougher!!
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Funny enough, I don't think swarms are tough enough when it comes to swarms of tiny creatures, I changed it further that only bludgeoning weapons deal half damage to those swarms and slashing and piercing deals 1 damage. Granted I already used the rules on torches against swarms and such, but IMO swarms should be to melee guys what golems are to magic users.The really tough swarms (for low-level characters) are the ones that are immune to weapons. The bat swarm is the worst, IMO.
The bat swarm does not need to be made tougher!!
I didn't make bat swarms tougher, they're diminutive they were already immune to weapon damage. and I had no problem with them.