How does a prismatic spray affect a Troop (from Rasputin must die)

[Mike Dalrymple]

I'm running Rasputin must die and a situation came up where the mage wanted to fire a prismatic spray into a Troop, FYI a Troop is a new kind of creature very similar to a swarm, and for spell targeting exactly like a swarm.

So while it's an area of effect, it's beams strike individuals within it's area.

Effects that target individuals can't effect a swarm,. but it's an area of effect spell and by definition should effect swarms?

What to do?

I need some outside view points to look at and make up my mind, as I see both sides and can't figure out which is correct for my group(our group is also split and I'm the deciding vote...)

Thanks for reading.

[Orfamay Quest]

I would say that AoE affects the swarm/troop as a single creature, just as a fireball would. The swarm makes "its" save and takes "the" appropriate effect. Bear in mind that there's no reason multiple creatures within the AoE can't be hit by the same "beam"; it's not a ray spell.

[Chris O'Reilly]

The beams do target individuals but the spell says every individual in the area is hit. This is different from say a magic missile where zapping 3 out of the untold number of bees in a swarm does effectively nothing.
I would roll on the table for the dominant effect. I wouldn't count the damage as area of effect for the purposes of swarms taking extra damage.

[Mike Dalrymple]

Thanks for the responses. I'll think about this for our next session on the 16th.

[rockdoctor]

Why wouldn't the damage affect the troops as an AoE? It's an AoE spell.

[Deliverance]

If you wanna be hardcore RAW about it, Prismatic Spray has an area of Cone Shaped Burst, thus making it an AoE. What the descriptive text says shouldnt affect it at that point. Even though it makes mention of 7 beams, the actual spell can affect far more than 7 enemies, leading me to believe that each beam within the cone is supposed to be like a sort of "lightning bolt" thematically.

[anthonydido]

rockdoctor wrote:

Why wouldn't the damage affect the troops as an AoE? It's an AoE spell.

We are now done with our Reign of Winter campaign so this is somewhat moot now.

The question came up first when it was used on a swarm (and troops are treated as swarms) It is an aoe spell, however the beams still target individual creatures. Swarms are immune to anything that targets individual creatures. what would happen if the violet ray (creature sent to another plane) hit? Would the entire swarm be sent? Would only one of the creatures in the swarm be sent? In a swarm comprised of hundreds to thousands of creatures, one missing creature isn't going to do much.

Luckily this didn't come into play again for us so we didn't have to worry about it.

[Lincoln Hills]

I realize that this is not a helpful rules answer, but my gut response to the original question was, "Hilariously!"

[Draco Bahamut]

I would consider each 1/7 of the troop being hit by a beam, se how many 1/7s would survive (if any), and adjust the troop hp based of that.

[Dave Justus]

By RAW "A troop is a collection of creatures that acts as a single creature." I believe that would mean a troop would only be effected by a single 'beam' (unless an 8 was rolled of course.)

It wouldn't be crazy though to figure out some mechanics for having the troop be hit by all 7 beams, probably with those that deal damage doing 1/7th as much as normal and those that kill/turn to stone/transport dealing damage to the troop equal to 1/7 the troops total hp on a failed save.