|
I was playing a 12th level Bard a couple of nights ago, and our party was confronted by a Troop of Hell Knights on horseback. The Troop was 8sq x 8sq.
I cast Slither(fka Black Tentacles) on them.
Now this was the first time anybody in the game has dealt with troops, so, for expedience, we kind of had to wing it.
The GM rolled one reflex save and failed, so we treated the damage as aoe.
As I now look at the troop rules, I'm thinking that there should have been a save for each 4x4 troop.
Anybody have experience with these rules, and advise how we should use them in the future?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I haven't used a Troop creature myself, I am just analyzing the rules text. The rules for Troop have changed a bit since they were first printed.
Current Troop Defenses rules have the troop separated into segments 10 feet on a side that have to stay adjacent.
Damage is dealt normally, though the Troop trait lists that most Troop stat blocks will have a weakness to Area or Splash damage (that would need to be listed in the stat block though, the Troop rules don't have a default weakness value to use).
For non-damaging effects: They are immune to single-target effects - an effect has to be able to target an area or at least 5 creatures. And each 10 foot segment would be affected by an effect separately - making their own save and suffering their own effects. And if an effect takes a segment out of commission for an entire round or more, that segment disperses and the overall Troop creature's stats are adjusted accordingly.
And if an effect does both damage and a non-damage effect, apply the damage first and then the non-damage effect.
So for Slither, the spell is an effect that does both damage (3d6 piercing and 1d6 persistent poison + heightening), and a non-damage effect (Grabbed or Restrained based on save results). The damage would be applied first and would affect the entire Troop creature. I would also have the save rolled for damage apply to the segment of the Troop closest to the origin point of the spell for the non-damaging effect instead of rolling all of them separately. For additional segments that are in the spell's area, they would only roll a separate save for the non-damage effect. Since neither Grabbed or Restrained prevents someone from continuing battle (Restrained still allows trying to escape), then there is no option to remove an entire segment of the Troop from that effect. If one or more of the segments is Immobilized, then the Troop Movement rules would mean that the Troop couldn't move in a way that moves those segments. It would still be able to reshape to get the other segments to move around though.
Wow. The new troop rules are WAY more complicated than I thought.
Aren't they supposed to be easier to manage than multiple individual creatures? The more I read about them, the less that seems to be the case.
Wow. The new troop rules are WAY more complicated than I thought.
Aren't they supposed to be easier to manage than multiple individual creatures? The more I read about them, the less that seems to be the case.
You can always just ignore the whole Segments thing and play them as a big swarm that gets smaller as you hit the HP thresholds. Four 10x10 sections is just one big 20x20 square, you reduce it to 15x15 at first threshold and then to 10x10 at second, with lowered capabilities as described in the statblocks (and keeping in mind their immunities wrt single target spells and such)
Much easier to run and they work perfectly fine, even if this method makes them cover less ground as they start losing segments.
You can always just ignore the whole Segments thing and play them as a big swarm that gets smaller as you hit the HP thresholds. Four 10x10 sections is just one big 20x20 square, you reduce it to 15x15 at first threshold and then to 10x10 at second, with lowered capabilities as described in the statblocks (and keeping in mind their immunities wrt single target spells and such)
Much easier to run and they work perfectly fine, even if this method makes them cover less ground as they start losing segments.
I think one of my GMs ran a half old and half new mix that seemed a good balance of convenient and mechanically rich.
They still had the new "segments" style token/map presence instead of the one big square, but they seemed to mostly run the old swarm style under the hood. Each threshold would poof a segment, but the troop was kinda still a single bodied creature instead of the new rules around each segment being it's own creature for purposes of buffs/debuffs, etc.
Technically, that houserule does buff troops, as the current rules allow AoE persistent damage to essentially do triple damage if you get the whole troop in range.
But tbh, troops kinda need the help. Troops and swarms have always been big pushovers when they have come up in APs.
(and btw the new "per segment" effect rules are genuinely incomplete and kinda stupid. It's all one creature, with the same action pool. What happens if you use a R6 Slow to target 1 segment? Does that single slowed segment actually remove an action from the whole troop, despite the rules saying you need a 20+ target effect to work on the whole troop at once?)
IMO, that GM's way to run it is also my very heavy recommendation. Ignore the rules about each segment having it's own buffs / debuffs as soon as that becomes a problem or headache.
The new snake-like moving behavior of the segments is great though, super easy to run and very fun.