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A Wasp Swarm is CR3 and as a swarm of diminutive creatures is immune to weapon damage.
I've gotten the impression that Pathfinder society strongly relies on sword swinging antagonists to provide a challenge, but once that melee strike is nullified it becomes a cake walk. So if your average Pathfinder Society villain had to fight a duel against a swarm of bees for some reason, would he be able to survive?
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Depends on the scenario level. Mid to higher levels starts seeing casters and many of them will have at least one AoE. Good-bye swarm.
Also, this
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Invisibility + summon swarm = faceroll?
Invisibility + summon swarm = faceroll?
No.
You summon a swarm of bats, rats, or spiders (your choice)
The easiest way I know of to get Wasp Swarms is Insect Plague, and those swarms are stationary, so the enemy can simply walk out of them if no one else is around.
None can stand against the might of Doctor BEEEES!!
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None can stand against the might of Doctor BEEEES!!
Here I just expected 1,294 posts about Nicholas Cage but then you posted this magnificence and my faith in humanity was magically restored.
BY BEES!
I like my PFS villains how I like my coffee: covered in BEES!My father was a bee keeper. His father was a bee keeper before him. I walk in their footsteps. And their footsteps were like this: "AAAAHHH! HELP! I'M COVERED IN BEES!"
It is hard to walk in the footsteps of my forefathers, because my forefathers weren't walking when they made those footsteps.
They were running.
Seriously though, like OP asked, is this a vulnerability? I don't know anything about PFS villains. Isn't there some kind of good, cheap way to deal with swarms? Alchemist's fire?
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Swarms are kind of OP - doing too much damage, and too hard to scare off etc.
I still have nightmares about my 5th level Paladin who was first cast Confusion on and then the druid summoned bees. BEES! And of course since I was attacked by the swarm every round I had to attack back (at no effect) every round.
The horror... the horror....
"THE STINGING, INSIDE MY ARMOR, ITCHY, SCRATCHY, SWARMING INTO MY MOUTH CHOKING ME!"-Sole Survivor.
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Invisibility + summon swarm = faceroll?No.
You summon a swarm of bats, rats, or spiders (your choice)The easiest way I know of to get Wasp Swarms is Insect Plague, and those swarms are stationary, so the enemy can simply walk out of them if no one else is around.
Yeah but if they can't fight back and can't find you, the swarm just gets to chase them around. It has a duration of concentration and can't be hurt by weapons. Spider swarms have a climb speed, deal 1d6 damage, and threaten poison + nausea.
You could kill a Greater Vital Striking T-Rex like this.
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You could kill a Greater Vital Striking T-Rex like this.
That's how they went extinct.
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I asked my group member who loves swarms the title question.
That was three hours ago. He's still laughing. I'm beginning to get worried that I might have to take him to the hospital.
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Uh so is the key to the next big minmax build?
How do we optimize bees?
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Uh so is the key to the next big minmax build?
How do we optimize bees?
Play a Witch. Be level 7.
Be master of Vomit Swarm.
It is a Conjuration (Summoning) spell.
Augment Summoning will make them slightly more robust (14 more HP), though sadly will do naught for the damage. More survivable for when/if they bust out the AoE spells and such though, which is a plus.
Dip a level of Druid.
Grab Sunlight Summons and Moonlight Summons so your beasties aren't worthless against everything with DR/Magic or DR/Silver.
And, err, not much support for summon spells that aren't Summon Monster, sadly.
Quicken it for two, maybe?
Wonder if stuff like Sickening Spell works with summons?
Dunno.
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I'd say about 50% of PFS villains would actually wind up being forced to withdraw from a simple swarm of bees. The other half are spellcasters that are, nine times out of ten, presented as solo encounters for some unfathomable reason. Bees'll get toasted, but uh.. lone caster versus group of bloodthirsty adventurers? Splat. Come to think of it one of the meanest bosses in any scenario I've ever played was purely melee. ... And now I've got a mental image of a stone giant fleeing in terror from bees.
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so i was just looking at the Pfsrd and would this rule apply since summon swarm is technically a summoning spell?
When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type. Creatures on Table: Summon Monster marked with an "*" are summoned with the celestial template, if you are good, and the fiendish template, if you are evil. If you are neutral, you may choose which template to apply to the creature. Creatures marked with an "*" always have an alignment that matches yours, regardless of their usual alignment. Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell's type match your alignment.
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Bees! Run for your lives! They've gone STING CRAZY!
Someone post the Nick Cage/bees reference before I loose it!
Bees! Run for your lives! They've gone STING CRAZY!
Someone post the Nick Cage/bees reference before I loose it!
Here ya go.Bees! Run for your lives! They've gone STING CRAZY!
Someone post the Nick Cage/bees reference before I loose it!
Have the villain your PC's defeat with bees come back as Ghost Rider, but a skull covered in bees instead of flames
so i was just looking at the Pfsrd and would this rule apply since summon swarm is technically a summoning spell?
When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type. Creatures on Table: Summon Monster marked with an "*" are summoned with the celestial template, if you are good, and the fiendish template, if you are evil. If you are neutral, you may choose which template to apply to the creature. Creatures marked with an "*" always have an alignment that matches yours, regardless of their usual alignment. Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell's type match your alignment.
Summon/Vomit swarm doesn't reference the Summon Monster spell. But I'm very interested in ways to apply templates to all your summons, because fire-resistant wasps are my new weapon of choice.
Here ya go.Bees! Run for your lives! They've gone STING CRAZY!
Someone post the Nick Cage/bees reference before I loose it!
Couldn't a character take a bee hive and throw it into a sack, then shake it and throw at the BBEG? Thee must be a "calm/charm vermin" druid spell somewhere...
A simple 20gp mundane swarmsuit makes you pretty well immune to swarms. Then a torch or alchemist fire, and it's over.
But yeah, swarms are pretty OP.
They do seem to be routinely under-CRd. Alternatively, I might opine they have double the hit points and do double the damage I would consider balanced.
Then a torch or alchemist fire, and it's over.
As I understand the rules a torch can't hurt swarms, because it only deals damage to single targets. Anything that does damage to squares, on the other hand does work. Like snapdragon fireworks, some domain abilities, revelations, splash weapons and AOE spells.
Should we try to use common sense (always difficult and dangerous in roleplaying games) I think water should work well vs most kinds of swarms. And with water I mean spells like create water, drench, hydraulic push.
There is a trait that offers some protection from swarms, but I don't know whether it is PFS legal:
Bellis Honey Harvester
Source Andoran, Spirit of Liberty pg. 18
Category Region
Requirement(s) Bellis [in Andoran]
Your frequent exposure to bees—and their stings—makes all such creatures seem more like nuisances than actual threats. You gain DR 3/— against damage dealt by swarms and a +1 trait bonus on saving throws against distraction and poison from swarms.
A simple 20gp mundane swarmsuit makes you pretty well immune to swarms.
Would a dwarf's slow and steady ability prevent the halving of speed from the swarm suit?
A simple 20gp mundane swarmsuit makes you pretty well immune to swarms.Would a dwarf's slow and steady ability prevent the halving of speed from the swarm suit?
Yes. I had a Dwarf Sorc who wore one.
I wonder... if you gave the swarm a level in Barbarian, how much worse would a raging swarm of bees be?
Not much worse I don't think, since they don't add Str to damage.
Though if you have a high level Swarm Barbarian with like Hive Totem...
What if you took levels in monk? Then you could take crane wing and be able to solo a vital striking t-rex!
*Cries*
Why would you say that?
Increasing swarm damage?
Simple advanced template adds +2 to all damage rolls.
No... the quick rebuild rules for the simple advanced template adds +2 damage. A swarm would get no benefit to damage from the advanced template (unless it somehow got strength to damage). Nausea/poison DCs would go up by 2, along with AC/touch AC and all saves (important vs. fireballs and alchemist fires).
As I understand the rules a torch can't hurt swarms, because it only deals damage to single targets.
That only applies to spells that target a creature or a number of creatures. In fact, since torches inflict fire damage (which would be affected by fire resistance) in addition to weapon damage (affected by DR), a torch does seem to do 1 point of damage to a swarm per hit.
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Well so are we going to see a guide to optimizing swarm-users? Somebody get busy! Busy as a ... BEE???
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Would a swarm with Rogue levels always deal SA damage? I mean, they're coming at you from all sides, so how do you retain Dex to AC from that? ;)
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I wonder... Looking at the Wisdom score of a bat swarm, could you imagine how much of a threat one of those could be as a cleric?