Just a short question: my players will encounter the acid beetle swarm next session and I am wondering how they could kill this swarm. I know the wizard does not have burning hands and the artificer, of course, is of no use as they have to deal with the problem immediately. So would torches work (how much damage would they do apart from imposing a -4 to hit, how about quenching them while fighting) or do they have to use lamp oil? I am really worried. Thanks for your short advice.
The swarm rules include guidelines for using torches to fight swarms (I believe they do 1d3 fire damage on a successful hit). If you're really that concerned, you might consider slipping a flask of alchemist's fire into some of the treasure before that encounter.
*Blush!* Sorry, I read the swarm traits, but must have overlooked this. If they can use torches, there is no problem there: 5 PCs with excellent abilitity scores...they could do something for their money!
Just a short question: my players will encounter the acid beetle swarm next session and I am wondering how they could kill this swarm. I know the wizard does not have burning hands
This may not help you, but Ray of Frost is a reasonable alternative to Burning Hands, especially for a sorcerer!
Are you sure? Ray of Frost is a targeted spell, and swarms are not affected by them (see D).
Are you sure? Ray of Frost is a targeted spell, and swarms are not affected by them (see D).
Yes, I believe so. Ray of Frost is a ray spell, not a targeted spell, so it can affect swarms. (Even if this wasn't the case, I would rule that it was! The image of the frost ray playing across the beetles, shattering them, is too appealing, and the encounter too difficult, to do otherwise...)
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Looks like we're at virtually the same point in the AP.
In our last night's play, my PCs collapsed the green-lantern passage, and then ran from the beetles and the mad slasher. It was great fun to see them run away.
After they regroup, they'll be returning. Where would you wily and cunning DMs have the PCs encounter them again? Where will the beetle swarm and the slasher have gone in the mean time?
Belfur is right about Ray of Frost not being effective against the beatles according to RAW. If the players have got enough treasure, you might steer them to buy the Adventurer's Wand (wand of burning hands) at Tyrol Ebberley's shop. You could cut down on the number of charges it has left and reduce the price to make it affordable. Alchemist's fire from Benazel is also good. Maybe he posts handbills advertising his wares in the local saloons--the players could spot one of these--you know the suggestive power of advertising, just concoct a good handbill claiming wondrous powers for the stuff to convince the PCs to buy a sample and try it out.
Torches are semi-effective at best. This encounter was universally difficult (see the Obits thread), and is especially so if you run it as written with the mad slasher in the mix as well. I would be prepared to make some favorable ad hoc rulings, including treating Ray of Frost more liberally as suggested above, if necessary to avoid a TPK. This encounter ended with three of my party members down and the beetles were finally killed with a burning cloak and lighting the bushes at the mouth of the cairn on fire. Both dubious ad hoc rulings on my part, but necessary to avoid having the AP end before it started.
I moved the mad slasher to its own encounter in the tunnels under the green elevator. I have a party of 6 so I put out 2 swarms, and they beat them with improvised weapons of lantern oil. I nearly dropped 2 characters in the process, and one other player did not stop running until he was out-side of the Cairn all-together. My party was able to handle this becasue they spent a full round doing full run actions to get away and then turn and set up the oil traps.
The best route for the party is to use alchemists fire. It is the easiest solution.
My Group
Fey Druid
Dwarf Fighter
Human Warlock
Human Cleric Dol-Arrah
Human Rouge
Human Fighter(going for Dervish)
No a torch to the lot, no AOE spells, just 2 bottles of oil for the warlock's lantern. The party too sun-rods instead.
Belfur is right about Ray of Frost not being effective against the beatles according to RAW.
I must respectfully disagree. All the ray spells have no 'Target' entry, and the SRD also says "You aim a ray as if using a ranged weapon... You don’t have to see the creature you’re trying to hit, as you do with a targeted spell."
Belfur is right about Ray of Frost not being effective against the beatles according to RAW.
I must respectfully disagree. All the ray spells have no 'Target' entry, and the SRD also says "You aim a ray as if using a ranged weapon... You don’t have to see the creature you’re trying to hit, as you do with a targeted spell."
I'm afraid you are misinterpreting the SRD. According to the SRD:
"A swarm is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate), with the exception of mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects) if the swarm has an Intelligence score and a hive mind. A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells."
While a ray isn't quite the same as a spell that has "Target: One Creature", it is still only able to effect one creature. In fact, disintegrate, specifically called out by the SRD, is a ray and thus unable to effect any swarm signifiacntly.
My PCs had an easy time with the swarm killing it in a single round. With the two rounds of warning while the swarm climbed the shaft they spread oil in two squares and then lit them with an alchemist fire that they had. The smell of charred acid beetles was pretty revolting though.
My PCs had an easy time with the swarm killing it in a single round. With the two rounds of warning while the swarm climbed the shaft they spread oil in two squares and then lit them with an alchemist fire that they had. The smell of charred acid beetles was pretty revolting though.
My crew use oil ignited my a torch. Even when facing the second swarm after not choosing to buy/make alchemist's fire when they resed for a day.
My PCs had an easy time with the swarm killing it in a single round. With the two rounds of warning while the swarm climbed the shaft they spread oil in two squares and then lit them with an alchemist fire that they had. The smell of charred acid beetles was pretty revolting though.My crew use oil ignited my a torch. Even when facing the second swarm after not choosing to buy/make alchemist's fire when they resed for a day.
My PC's as well.. They saw it coming a mile away, are pretty experienced players, and immediately spread oil around the room entrance. They backed out..and voila! Toasty Insects! Sounds silly, but give them really potent dwarvern ale or the like if alchemist's fire seems too fantastic for diamond lake. I forget the exact proof required for alcohol to be considered flamable, but I know it tastes pretty terrible (Like Bacardi 151).
A few of players have been burned by swarms at early levels before and started with a few flasks of alchemist's fire. No problems.
My boys went the lamp oil route as well, but with a twist..
As the elevator crashes down and the skittering starts coming closer, Mandos the druid summons a wolf ally to go forth and see what the fuss is about. The wolf is quickly overwhelmed by the thousands of beetles, and Finnegan the halfling rogue decides to make short order of the situation. He douses the wolf in lamp oil and lits a macabre little bonfire. As you can imagine, this starts off quite the lovely relationship between the druid and rogue :)
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My boys are heading back into the Cairn tonight, aftering having fled from the beetles and the slashers (I includeded two slashers, since I have eight players).
Does anyone have any advice as to what/where the beetles/slashers have been cooling their heels since the party fled the Cairn to avoid them?
My intention is that the beetles will have gone back to the vicinity of the collapsed green-lantern hole. My thinking is that the slashers will be hanging out in/around the entrance (feeding on the local wolf population thayt my party has been avoiding), and that when the party returns to the Cairn (after healing & recuperution) they would probably run into the avericious slashers in the early rooms of the Cairn.
One idea my players had that I thought was brilliant (but didn't actually get used, as they killed it with oil fires soon enough) is to use the Sarcophagus trap against the swarm. The trap uses Burning Hands directed at whoever opened it- so if one of the players was willing to take some damage (someone preferably with a high Reflex Save), they could lure the swarm right in front of the trap, and open the sarcophagus, letting the trap go off on themselves along with the swarm.
There's a bit of a discrepancy, however, regarding the reset of the trap. Once in the adventure, it's referred to as a manual reset (meaning it would only go off once, when the PCs first opened it), but I believe in the statblock itself, it's listed as an automatic reset (so it could be used repeatedly, like in this tactic).
I decided that the automatic reset meant that it went off each time they failed the disable device check. So I zapped the players 2 or 3 times in a row. However, when I went back later, I decided that this was in error. There's a section "Ghosts in the Machine" which talks about minor elementals tasked with Cairn maintenance. I think that these are the entities responsible for the reset, and therefore it is automatic, but only once a week.
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My players finally cracked the swarm problem last night--sort of.
They had a great plan involving bundles of oil-soaked twigs which they laid down at either end of the cobwebbed hallway between rooms 6 & 7, with the intention of trapping the swarm between the bundles and lighting them afire.
Unfortunately, the plan broke down during the fog of war. As the beetles swartmed, the bundles were dropped in haste and didn't entirely block the passageway. The beetles swarmed through--and chased the adventures entirely out of the cairn--again!!!
It was hilariously rollicking good fun.
I took pity on the players after that, and ruled that they eventually were able to execute their plan successfully.
Then they lucked out (Natural 20)and were able to disarm the trap in #8 (having set it off twice before to amusing results). Their reward for this feat--the iron (ceramic) ball trap.
Bwah-ha-ha-haaaa!
My players had fun with the beetles. They couldn't figure out how to take them on. The tiefling (having 2 resistances at the time) First decided "I'm going to set myself on fire and jump into the swarm!"
He almost lost consciousness there.
Then the rogue took off his shirt and lit it on fire. I treated it as a grenadelike weapon.
It landed on the tieflings head.
Fortunately, as the tiefling fainted, his flames burned the beetles to cinders
My PCs used Color spray (15' cone burst) and then went tap dancing to crunch all the critters before they became conscious again.
Spell requires target to have eyes and the rest is based on HD.
My group includes a warlock, who before the swarm appeared had found out that attacking the sarcophagus caused it to react violently. So he used that to his advantage, moving behind the swarm and using baleful utterance to roast the swarm. Still almost killed the party though (enlarged monks are not very good at handling diminutive swarms - especially when said monk is on fire...)
My PC's as well.. They saw it coming a mile away, are pretty experienced players, and immediately spread oil around the room entrance. They backed out..and voila! Toasty Insects! Sounds silly, but give them really potent dwarvern ale or the like if alchemist's fire seems too fantastic for diamond lake. I forget the exact proof required for alcohol to be considered flamable, but I know it tastes pretty terrible (Like Bacardi 151).My PCs had an easy time with the swarm killing it in a single round. With the two rounds of warning while the swarm climbed the shaft they spread oil in two squares and then lit them with an alchemist fire that they had. The smell of charred acid beetles was pretty revolting though.My crew use oil ignited my a torch. Even when facing the second swarm after not choosing to buy/make alchemist's fire when they resed for a day.
Hey me and Bacardi 151 had a great time trick or treating with the kids Halloween night and she tasted just fine to me!!!!
My PCs used Color spray (15' cone burst) and then went tap dancing to crunch all the critters before they became conscious again.
Spell requires target to have eyes and the rest is based on HD.
Don't have rules handy, but as an illusion spell this is mind-affecting. IIRC, swarms are immune.
