Swarms... Again

[setzer9999]

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

setzer9999 wrote:

only spellcasters with an AoE spell can affect swarms at all, leaving many parties without a way to combat them period

I knew you'd agree with me eventually. Pretty much, yeah. Along with splash weapons as explicitly allowed in the swarm subtype rules. Remember, specific rules trump general rules.

This is why swarms are deadly to low level and unprepared adventurers.

There is no rule in the swarm rules that say splash weapons direct damage hurts the swarm... it says that AoE's do 50% more, including the splash damage AoE... but the direct damage from a splash weapon is not AoE damage, and the swarm is immune to it according to your interpretation of the rest of the rules. Nothing in the swarm entry makes it vulnerable to the direct damage portion of a splash weapon. 50% more damage to 0 damage is still 0.

It seems like this interpretation of the rules can't be right.

Bat Swarm... the CR 2 TPK machine.

Has a speed of 40 feet, so you are extremely unlikely to be able to outrun it.

If you don't have any AoE spells or very specific spells prepared or remaining, you can't hurt it.

TPK.

At least you can outrun a spider swarm, but you can't escape a bat swarm, and you all die.

If all this is true, wouldn't the Bat Swarm be CR 6?

[Ansel Krulwich]

setzer9999 wrote:

Bat Swarm... the CR 2 TPK machine.

Has a speed of 40 feet, so you are extremely unlikely to be able to outrun it.

If you don't have any AoE spells or very specific spells prepared or remaining, you can't hurt it.

TPK.

At least you can outrun a spider swarm, but you can't escape a bat swarm, and you all die.

Yep. They're pretty nasty. Check out the cockroach swarm. They don't fly as well as bats do (only a 30 ft. fly speed) but they can keep pace with you and you can't even jump into water to escape them like you can with bats.

And how humiliating is that? Being eaten to death by cockroaches. Yuck!

Ooh... And my favorite, the raven swarm. CR 3 and when it attacks it claws your eyes out making you blind. Blind! Now you're crawling around at half speed, your face covered in blood as the ravens tear the flesh from your bones and feast on your lungs and pancreas and livers. You're dead. Dead. Dead! All because you didn't let that 1st level wizard into your party.

setzer9999 wrote:

If all this is true, wouldn't the Bat Swarm be CR 6?

Ha ha ha ha... No. The statblock clearly says it's a CR 2. The designers and developers of this game know better than us. They have brains, like... the size of a planet.

[Drakkiel]

Poison in inhalation form works really great...my GM didn't even think about the fact that I had STR damage poison (changed to inhaled with master poisoner) with me when he threw swarms at my group for the first time :)

[Odraude]

I could actually see a case for splash weapons, since they are Area of Effect and are usually not considered weapon damage.

[Ninja in the Rye]

I think the OP has it right by RAW, a ray spell has no target, it simply produces rays which are weapon like effects that you then target at enemies so you can target the swarm with a ray just like you can swing a sword at it. As elemental damage is not weapon damage, the damage from the ray would then harm the swarm.

[EldonG]

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

setzer9999 wrote:

only spellcasters with an AoE spell can affect swarms at all, leaving many parties without a way to combat them period

I knew you'd agree with me eventually. Pretty much, yeah. Along with splash weapons as explicitly allowed in the swarm subtype rules. Remember, specific rules trump general rules.

This is why swarms are deadly to low level and unprepared adventurers.

Just my $.02 on why splash weapons work - it's as if they target the square...if you just hit the square a creature was in, it would just do the splash damage to the creature, logically...and each component within a swarm takes no more than 1 hp to kill...seeing as it affects the surrounding squares, it surely affects the whole square for that 1 pt, making it for all practical purposes, an area effect attack.

[setzer9999]

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

I think the OP has it right by RAW, a ray spell has no target, it simply produces rays which are weapon like effects that you then target at enemies so you can target the swarm with a ray just like you can swing a sword at it. As elemental damage is not weapon damage, the damage from the ray would then harm the swarm.

You're the only one in this thread who agrees with me, but I've seen many other threads elsewhere where others take our position. I guess the others in this thread would call it a house rule, but this is why I don't play organized play...

@Ansel_Krulwich
NO, the devs do not have brains the size of planets, and if the rules make a creature that ridiculously powerful, its CR is wrong. This game, like any other, is riddled with holes, inconsistencies, and poor planning. The game would not work in the slightest as a computer program, and requires constant coaxing on the part of a good GM.

A lot of stuff got mixed up and muddled in the port from 3.5 to PF. PF is better in most ways than 3.5, a lot more streamlined and less clunky. However, there are specific points which are messed up, and this is one of them. In 3.5, a weapon with an enchantment does harm swarms with the elemental part (but just not the weapon damage itself), and mechanically there is NO difference between that dynamic and a ray attack.

Perhaps even in 3.5 rays weren't supposed to work, but I never said 3.5 was developed perfectly either, far from it. If a weapon enchant harms the creature, so should an elemental ray attack. Consistency is important, as well as not ramming impossible circumstances down new players throats... and we are talking about magic here after all...

EldonG wrote:

Just my $.02 on why splash weapons work - it's as if they target the square...if you just hit the square a creature was in, it would just do the splash damage to the creature, logically...and each component within a swarm takes no more than 1 hp to kill...seeing as it affects the surrounding squares, it surely affects the whole square for that 1 pt, making it for all practical purposes, an area effect attack.

By RAW, if you accept that rays do not work, no splash damage also does not work on swarms... well, only the splash part... 1 damage to the area. Re-read the splash weapon damage rules. There are two parts to it, one is a direct hit, the other is AoE, similar to a meteor swarm spell... which, stupidly, would also only hurt the swarm with the AoE portion, and not the direct damage portion by RAW with the reading supported by most in this thread.

So, I guess I have a rules answer from other players/GMs of Pathfinder, and I guess that is why I prefer to GM and stay away from organized play, because lots of the rules suck. You can call it houseruling or playing a 3.5/PF hybrid RAW, whatever... but rays, magic weapon elemental damage, and splash weapons all affect swarms normally in my games... whatever.