1) A smart player will set a wall of fire in front of the opening where bugs are coming out. This may or may not effect puzzle solving - if they have i t.
2) Depending on what type of swarms they are and what they do, they may not be solving much of anything.
3) No matter how ridiculous and absurd a solution to a puzzle, players will always come up with a solution even more preposterous.
I would say solving the puzzle is going to be the real problem here, not dealing with stupid bugs.
PS = Do not forget the Swarmsuit in the APG.
Oh! I just had an idea. No idea if its a good one though. What if the gods body is slowly sapping the PCs ability to defend themselves. Something like 3 points of AC damage a round. Essentially the PCs would lose points to their AC every round, making those harmless creatures that couldn't hit the well defended fighter at the start of combat more deadly every round. It would probably make the PCs scramble for every AC boosting effect they can think of in order to last longer. Thoughts?
That would be very difficult to describe. I would go with Dex damage instead, and have a mist that eats their armor over a *very* extended period of time (because that could piss them off). That will do about the same thing. AC 10 - dex (5 minimum) should be as low as it can get though.
Go for gold. Swarms, resource drain, and puzzles. Get one of those sliding tile puzzles, and once they figure that out, it open to reveal a riddle. The answer to which is "sacrifice" (in a literal sense).
I'm thinking Rune Scarabs.
The rune scarabs have numbers and letters on their backs.
Since the players have to fill the magic metal Suduko board to control the buggies, a wall of fire too early would be self defeating.
Their bite has caos poison. DC18 1D6 points of a random ability.
1-Str, 2-Dex, 3-Con, 4-Int, 5-Wis, or 6-Cha.
I forget which monster manual they were in.
Use the spider swarm, just change the poison and description.
I would like to hear how your PCs seperate the ones they want from the herd and handle them. Should be lots of roleplaying fun.
Since they have been chewing on a fossilized diety, they probably eat anything, animal, vegetable, or mineral.
This seemed like a great time to mention a good encounter I made one time. This may not apply to a lot of groups. They where out on the plains and I had a door in the ground that only activated with a few command words but touching the door caused endless swarms of snakes to attack them. I made the command words "I'm tired of all these g&~ d*@n snakes on this motherf**king plain!" I knew one member of my group would eventually yell that out
Never underestimate the ability of a player to find an alternate solution. I once had a GM who tossed us against an adamantine door with 16 levers that had to be pulled in the proper sequence. When the sorcerer tried to disentegrate it, the ray bounced back and almost killed our fighter. 2 rounds and one rock-to-mud spell later, the door is sliding messily out of the non-warded wall it's attached to.
However, to answer your question, I'd introduce a new swarm into the combat every 2-3 rounds, and make sure the party knows it's arriving. This is a pace that isn't going to instantly overwhelm them, but any group of marginally intelligent PCs should realize that these are numbers they can't triumph over in the long run. If they stand and fight, they should eventually realize that the swarms aren't going to end, and the fact that they've taken some damage by now just adds to the urgency of solving that puzzle!
If one PC focuses entirely on the puzzle, consider removing him from combat, but add a new swarm for each 30 seconds to 1 minute that passes real time.
Maybe 1 BBEG that is getting healed or whatever from 3 or 4 gems that have to be disabled or dispelled or counterspelled, while the chaos swarms keep coming and coming and coming.
And in addition to the chaos poison (Fort Save), they also cause confusion (Will Save). Maybe have an undead BBEG that is being healed by beams of negative energy (Reflex Save) from the gems. Can be disabled, counterspelled, dispelled, even counter-energy channelled.
Something for every one.
I ran a game that was (advertised) a "Sliders" style game. The PCs were in a situation where they had a strange puzzle-box that they had no instructions for (similar to Hellraiser), that when activated could transport people in the vicinity to another realm.
Originally this transported around the world, then to other worlds, and other planes, and even transport through time.
All I did was make the person trying to activate it blindly roll an Int check.
However, often I would have some event occuring that would make it critical for this to happen, with each failed check causing a round to go by. At one point I had a Tarrasque chasing them... ah the good ol' days of early 3e DMing.
Maybe 1 BBEG that is getting healed or whatever from 3 or 4 gems that have to be disabled or dispelled or counterspelled, while the chaos swarms keep coming and coming and coming.
(chaos emeralds?)And in addition to the chaos poison (Fort Save), they also cause confusion (Will Save). Maybe have an undead BBEG that is being healed by beams of negative energy (Reflex Save) from the gems. Can be disabled, counterspelled, dispelled, even counter-energy channelled.
Something for every one.
I just assumed the poison was a fort save, but the will save could be interesting.
Would a reflex save help a character avoid getting bitten by the swarm?If the dead deity is Kyuss then the undead could be a Spawn of Kyuss.
On the other hand, Kyuss could be a dead neighbor. Some true believer took a chunk to use as a holy symbol or summoning aid and the worms started getting out.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/GothGuru/FRPG/RuneScarabs.jpg
If you can follow the link and print them out you can give the characters a tactile handout puzzle.