The Spire of Long Shadows (adventure #7 in the AoW) has a nasty new monster called a wormswarm. It has some rather impressive immunities including "weapon damage" among others. My experience with swarms of any kind is rather limited so I thought I'd ask the experts (you) for avice. How would you deal with this menace?
|
From past player and DM experiences, dealing with swarms is a mixed bag. The most common tactics:
1) Area-of-effect evocations are the most common winners.
2) Barrind that, weapons that deal energy damage should also be able to injure a swarm, though this is a long process and leaves one open to the Distraction yuckiness. Bear's Endurance helps counter this to a small degree.
3) Repel vermin has been used to good effect, but strangely, not many people pack it as a situational scroll, and fewer still as a memorized/available spontaneous spell.
4) Barring that... RLH. Which, of course, won't work in the situations in "Spire of Long Shadows".
Swarms... they be nasty. I don't think my players have forgiven me yet for the undead Scarab Swarms from "Sandstorm" or, worse yet, the one included in the Eberron introductory "Forgotten Forge" adventure. At least I can point the finger at Keith Bakker for the latter.
1) Area-of-effect evocations are the most common winners.
That's what I thought. I was thinking of fireball as perhaps the best example, but with a maximum of 10d6 damage it would take at least two (doing maximum damage)to kill one wormswarm. That may not sound like much but when you have a room with 6 of them (room #6 in The Spire of Long Shadows) and have only average die rolls then it will take over 20. What mage uses up that many slots for one spell? I assume it would be a combination of attacks from everyone in the party but like you said, it will take some time.
The Age of Worms continually surprises me with just how difficult and challenging it is. The elder black pudding in a Gathering of Winds also blew my mind.
If I remember the rules right a swarn takes 50% more damage from AoE effects.
Not 100% sure on this one.
If I remember the rules right a swarn takes 50% more damage from AoE effects.
Not 100% sure on this one.
I am. Swarms, MM p 316. This includes spells with area effects and splash weapons like alchemist's fire.
We're in Eberron, and worms typically die from the touch of silver, so I had a nasty idea.
Warforged with Silver Tracery feat, dropped right in the middle of the bunch.
They'll whistle through that place.
|
We're in Eberron, and worms typically die from the touch of silver, so I had a nasty idea.
Warforged with Silver Tracery feat, dropped right in the middle of the bunch.
They'll whistle through that place.
Makes touching the Sea of worms or drinking from the Fountain of Green Temptation to activate vision 5 easy. You might want to negate the XP award if your PCs accomplish it that way.
Makes touching the Sea of worms or drinking from the Fountain of Green Temptation to activate vision 5 easy. You might want to negate the XP award if your PCs accomplish it that way.
There's another thread on warforged in the AOW, and if I remember this correctly warforged aren't immune to the damage done by the worms, just to the chance that they will rise after they are destroyed. So drinking from the fountain and being dropped into the middle of the Sea of Worms are still just as dangerous, there's just no chance your warforged will come back to get you ;)