I've never run into a swarm, but at low levels a torch, alchemist's fire, and even oil pouches followed by a Spark spell or lit tindertwig can all do SOMETHING.
Every caster should always have a minimum of one AoE blast spell ready. A single one is enough as a backup. It's like rope or a backup weapon. Better to have it and not need it rather than to need it and not have it. For example, by the time my last campaign ended, my Hunter had Stone Call, Burst of Nettles, Ice Storm, and Call Lightning Storm, plus two wands that were Fireball and an acid based Burning Hands. I NEVER used them, other than Stone Call every now and then, but I knew I had them if I needed to.
(The rest of the spells were buffs, a couple of debuffs, and the Cure line. I got the wands when our wizard died.)
Fireball explicitly states that it does not catch things on fire.The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.Fireball is the go-to spell for when you actually do want to burn the room and everything in it instead of just your enemies. I use it sparingly precisely because one often doesn't want to burn down the building just to take out a burglar.
Urgh. I hate it when the rules say one thing in one spot, and then another elsewhere.
Characters exposed to burning oil, bonfires, and non-instantaneous magic fires might find their clothes, hair, or equipment on fire. Spells with an instantaneous duration don’t normally set a character on fire, since the heat and flame from these come and go in a flash.
How does it melt metals if it's instantaneous?
Urgh, in any case, fine, I'll concede I was wrong on that point.
There's no such thing as a harmless swarm. Either the swarm does what it does, or it's not a swarm. Reading swarms being used as caltrops gives me a wry/salty/else smile.
RL swarms are largely harmless. The word "swarm" is literally the thing honey bees do to to propagate. And it's literally the most harmless form of honey bee gathering.
The word "swarm" is then used figuratively to any large gathering of insects/arthropods/anything. A "swarm" of bats is scary, but how many people die per year to "bat swarms"? A swarm of flies is disconcerting and unpleasant, but again, how many die to that? And what about a swarm of mosquitoes? Diseases aside, which don't kick in right away, you don't typically die when swarmed by mosquitoes.
Why all of the default PF swarms are beefed up psychotic versions of what we'd find IRL, I don't know, but that doesn't mean that's the only thing a GM can or should do.
"You enter the swamp, quietly paddling towards the hidden boggard camp. After half an hour, you finally see it, lights in the distance. Failing to spot the alarm trap, you suddenly see yourselves engulfed in light and... nothing. But suddenly, you start hearing a hum. All around you, the light darkens, you are engulfed by MOSQUITOES!" And that's probably about when the sentries start throwing javelins at the party, while they have to make a bunch of low DC checks for concentration and potentially disease (DC 8 or so maybe). The swarms themselves don't have a means to kill the party, they just debuff them. IMO, that'd be a fine usage of swarms.
"You enter the altar room, and you hear a deafening buzz. You can barely see the artifact on the pedestal, as a colossal swarm of honey bees fly around it. You've been warned of this challenge, and you know that they are harmless, for the most part. But you also know that, if angered, a million stings away you. Your enemies are catching up, you must hurry."
This could act as an environmental hazard, with a fear-inducing DC. The slower you go, the greater the bonus on your check, but failing by too much can mean that the swarm turns on you. You've only got so much time before the big unbeatable bad arrives. Those on the periphery must fend off forward waves of mooks despite the distractions.
Swarms are meant to be hard to beat via martial attacks, and they are meant to ignore most defenses and pose a general nuisance to everyone they enshroud. That's all. For a swarm to be pertinent, it does not need to move, it does not need to be lethal. When you cast Insect Plague, the wasp swarms don't move, for example. Moving and being lethal aren't really core to what a swarm is, they just pair well with it. Snake Swarms in Indiana Jones, or the beetle swarms in the Mummy franchise, for the most part aren't dealt with by killing them. The protagonists mostly either flee them, or successfully navigate through them. They are environmental hazards more than they are monsters-like challenges. Sure, there are a /lot/ of movies based on the premise of animals gone crazy and killing everybody, but that's not their sole depiction.
Swarms are just one tool among others to force players to drastically switch strategies. And sure, they screw martials worse than creatures immune to magic, like Golems, screw casters. That doesn't negate their potential to make encounters or locations better.
Out of curiosity, what measures do you believe the investigator should take to prepare himself against the proposed vescavor swarm? What measures does any non-caster have against such a swarm? Most all the tools that people so blithely suggest as the solution against swarms for such characters are ineffective in this case.
People need to stop acting as if encounters with swarms are not extremely challenging and incredibly dependent on correct party composition past the very early levels. When swarms become diminutive, have dozens of HP’s, have elemental resistance(s), hit you harder than your piddly splash weapons hit them and have additional special attacks like poison or ability damage etc., the solutions are an AOE spell, a specialized piece of equipment or avoidance; if the party doesn’t have these tools, the GM is playing rocks fall, you die.
Oil...?
A pint of lamp oil burns for 6 hours in a common lantern or lamp. You can also use a flask of lamp oil as a splash weapon. Use the rules for alchemist’s fire, except that it takes a full-round action to prepare a flask with a fuse. Once it is thrown, there is a 50% chance of the flask igniting successfully.
You can pour a pint of oil on the ground to cover an area 5 feet square, provided that the surface is smooth. If lit, the oil burns for 2 rounds and deals 1d3 points of fire damage to each creature in the area.
A full turn action to prepare, then a standard action to use, with a 50% fail rate even if you hit. That's terrible. That's worse than terrible.
Pouring it on the ground is a better use of it I guess (what kind of action is that though?). The damage is still abysmal. 2d3 damage over 2 turns...
I have a PC that chose to specialize in poisons and it worked for him for several levels. A few game sessions ago however I point-blank told my players how, now at level 8, a lot of CR equivalent monsters are starting to have ridiculously high Fort saves or poison immunity as I plan out my adventures. I turned to the one playing the Investigator with poison specialization and said "plan accordingly."
He hasn't.
That's not the same thing. Poison builds are terrible, poison is terrible in the hands of PCs, and even the most benevolent GM would have a hard time making a poison-based PC viable in the long-term. Even putting this fact aside, you did give him warning of what was to come. I'm not in the "swarms are never good" camp. Just in the "using swarms merely because you rolled them on a random encounter chart might not be the best idea nor the best usage of swarms" camp.
Obviously, every table has its own culture. Some tables have the mentality that "you must be ready for everything, or else you will die". Our table has more of an "you must be optimized, or else you will die". We obviously still need some versatility and contingencies, and a diversified arsenal of attacks and defenses. But accounting for every possible threat in the book? It would think resources out so thin that we would be certain to die to the first big dumb creature we fight. The item to let martials fight swarms is multiple thousands of gp, serves no other purpose than to fight swarms, and takes up your only neck slot. That's asking him to switch essentially a +2 amulet of natural armor for an item that's only useful in rare fights, or to buy both, switch them in battle, and skimp out elsewhere.
Some people may enjoy min-maxing their inventory to have a solution to the million potential challenges that could be thrown at them and re-adjusting at every level according to the apparition of new threats. We find that tedious. We'll have stuff to cover more than the mere basics, but not contingencies for every possible thing and not stock up on a ton of extremely situational expenses.
IRL is IRL, IG is IG. Trying to translate IRL expectations to ingame, and reverse isn't what I would call healthy. Some characters inspirations can be extracted from RL, but then there should be a realistic translation. This is a fantasy game, not reality. As such my base reference is the swarm encountered on early adventures, not the honey-producing bees.
"Not healthy"...? Just because you have vicious fantasy monsters, doesn't mean you need to throw out everything that does exist IRL. Importing content from IRL does not require expecting every aspect of the game to run as it would IRL. There's no rule written anywhere that states that every obstacle you present to the PCs must 1) chase them around and 2) have the means to kill them in combat. If you think it's "unhealthy" to present the PCs with a swarm that neither chases them nor inflicts HP damage, well, I don't really know what to say. Sounds like a rather unhealthy attitude to me.
Swarms are uniquely b u l l s h i t because they shine a light on a fundamental flaw of the game - the fact that martials don't have any AoE capabilities.
This is 100% wrong.
Any character that chooses to put even minimal resources into it can kill swarms.
It has nothing to do with martial vs. caster. It is a basic question of, "did you come prepared."
Any character can carry alchemist fire or Acid flasks.
If you feel really paranoid, pack a few pellet grenades. 3d6 damage with a 10' radius.
Or, you can keep complaining about what your character cannot do instead of asking, "How can my character do this?"
"Not healthy"...? Just because you have vicious fantasy monsters, doesn't mean you need to throw out everything that does exist IRL. Importing content from IRL does not require expecting every aspect of the game to run as it would IRL. There's no rule written anywhere that states that every obstacle you present to the PCs must 1) chase them around and 2) have the means to kill them in combat. If you think it's "unhealthy" to present the PCs with a swarm that neither chases them nor inflicts HP damage, well, I don't really know what to say. Sounds like a rather unhealthy attitude to me.Differing gaming experiences. Where I played, and the group in general, would consider the average outlook of the posters there as being soft. I would have liked to play Rappan Athuk, so the barometer is clearly different.
I don't think the faintest second that depicting a harmless swarm is proper. I do respect your point of view as that makes sense for lots of groups, but applying this to my home games would be equal as being a water down, neither I will expect my GMs following suit. I expect sequences of rest, fun and waste, but without blood and sweat, I won't find the equilibrium I want.
Agreeing to disagree as no one will budge anyway.
I'm not sure I follow your train of thought, though. I'm not saying that all swarms should be made harmless. Nor that non-lethal swarms should only be used alone. Sometimes low-threat obstacles can serve a purpose to make a challenge even more challenging, without taking the spotlight itself. Like sending a lot of minions to cover for the boss, saying there's a storm raging on and that it hampers ranged combat and vision, icy floors that hamper movement, and so on. Are you saying your table will not put anything in the game if it isn't capable of killing a PC by itself?
If you feel that, thematically, swarms are somewhat different than other monster types/hazards and that they should always be very dangerous, than I guess we'll indeed have to agree to disagree, because I see no reason for this to be the case.
I don't typically use a lot of "very lethal" hazards, because I find them too swingy, and honestly as a player I tend to roll nat 1s on critical saves and dying because of a single bad roll isn't terribly exciting. I'm more attrition-inclined. Stacking little challenges and threats, where the whole becomes lethal even when the parts aren't. We like to be challenged, and death isn't uncommon, but "soft" challenges like "non-lethal" swarms, difficult terrain, or weather modifiers can drastically alter the difficulty of encounters.
If only there was a super inexpensive item that could be worn as a move action in case of swarms to make the encounter trivial...
If only you'd read the posts where people recognize this as an option and the posts where people explain why it is not the panacea it is presented as.
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If only there was a super inexpensive item that could be worn as a move action in case of swarms to make the encounter trivial...Out of reach till level 4+, which is when swarms aren't as big a deal.
Levels 1-3: Alchemist's Fire and Acid flasks.
Levels 4-20: Swarmbane Clasp. Eventually pool money to buy one for the fighter at very low level.Done.
If only you'd read the posts where people recognize this as an option and the posts where people explain why it is not the panacea it is presented as.
Such as?
Hellwasp Swarm is probably a worse CR 8. Slightly lower damage, but Fire Resist 10 and DR 10/good even if you happen to have a Swarmbane Clasp.
The problem with this is the DR and the fact that it has 90hp (it's a CR 8 after all), not the fact that it is a swarm. Just wear the clasp and beat it as you would do with any 90hp - DR 10/good enemy.
We would have been out of luck for the most part, because ain't no swarmbane clasps lying around in the Stolen Lands, and ain't no towns within 100 miles to buy one at- and that 1d6x1.5 from alchemist's fire isn't going to do much to 6 rat swarms (an actual encounter in Varnhold).
Rat Swarms take half damage, you don't even need a clasp!
If you're a martial, you don't have any options. You either buy the Swarmbane Clasp and forget about ever using your Neck slot, or you lose. That's it.
I didn't know necklaces were bolted to the chest once worn the first time! I thought you could, you know, remove your Amulet of Natural Armor when facing swarms (since they don't even roll to hit) and wear a clasp, all in a single round...I guess I'm mistaken.
Spider Swarms are CR1 and have an average of 9 HP.
Lamp Oil costs 1 SILVER can be used like Alch Fire (so 1d6 dmg w/ 50% chance to go off), OR, it can be used to douse a 5ft square for 2 rounds causing 1d3 damage each round.
Alchemist's Fire costs 20gp and deals 1d6 dmg.
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Honestly, there's no reason a level 1 party cannot afford these things. The only excuse you wouldn't have them is if you didn't prepare. And if that's the case, like I said earlier, running is a perfectly acceptable answer to a swarm.
For levels 4+, Scrolls of Repel Vermin are available for the dirt cheap "cover your ass" cost of 375gp and provide 10mins/lvl protection against vermin. Or, buy that aforementioned Swarmbane Clasp for 3,000gp for a more permanent solution.
Spider Swarms are CR1 and have an average of 9 HP.
Lamp Oil costs 1 SILVER can be used like Alch Fire (so 1d6 dmg w/ 50% chance to go off), OR, it can be used to douse a 5ft square for 2 rounds causing 1d3 damage each round.
Alchemist's Fire costs 20gp and deals 1d6 dmg.
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Honestly, there's no reason a level 1 party cannot afford these things. The only excuse you wouldn't have them is if you didn't prepare. And if that's the case, like I said earlier, running is a perfectly acceptable answer to a swarm.
For levels 4+, Scrolls of Repel Vermin are available for the dirt cheap "cover your ass" cost of 375gp and provide 10mins/lvl protection against vermin. Or, buy that aforementioned Swarmbane Clasp for 3,000gp for a more permanent solution.
For the cheap seats, I'm not talking about swarms of tiny vermin with 9hp's on average. My concern is with the higher level, more difficult swarms; the ones with dozens of hp's comprised of diminutive creatures with elemental resistances and special attacks of their own as I mentioned
What do the martials do against Mark Hoover's vescovar swarm if they do not happen to have a swarmbane clasp? WTF good is an alchemist's fire against a swarm with fire resist 10?? A scroll of repel vermin is useless because vescovar are not vermin. Even if they were, scrolls are also a terribly unreliable way to cast spells with saves due to the low saving throws they require. The non-casters can't hit it because vescovar are diminutive. How many flasks of acid and for how many rounds are they going to throw them for to do 47hp's? Meanwhile they're taking 2d6hp of damage each round they are caught in the swarm, which is perfectly within the realm of possibility, without even taking terrain and/or room size limitations into account, thanks to the confusion effect the swarm emits in a 15' radius. The DC is fairly low but we are talking about martials i.e. classes with generally poor will saves.
I don't personally care for any in game problem that has one and only one solution for an entire style of gameplay (non-casters in this case), aside from fleeing (which isn't even always possible). It's not that swarms should never be thrown against a party but throwing them against a party without the tool(s) to deal with them is not much fun for the players and usually results in character death(s).
Please stop going on and on about the the solutions to easy swarms, FFS. Those are easy. Care to address the vescovar swarm against a party without any AOE spell capability and not in possession of swarmbane clasps? Parties like this do exist--I'm playing in one right now and we have lost at least one character to a higher CR swarm that none of us could affect.
Pellet grenades were mentioned previously, and are not overly expensive to purchase or craft.
Splintercloud arrows are also not overly expensive to purchase or craft.
Both are available to anyone with a modest monetary investment, or some time to craft.
Both are ranged attacks that keep you away from the swarm.
Both are very likely to be in my everyday adventuring gear... because when adventuring, it's best to be prepared.
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This thread is ridiculous. Lots of solutions have been proposed, but for some reason they keep being handwaived one after the other with no explanation.
- Swarms are a problem at low levels
+ Against low level swarms use splash weapons
- Low level swarms are not the problem, high level ones are!
+ Get a scroll of Repel Vermin
- What if the swarm is not vermin???
+ Get a Swarmbane Clasp
- What if I don't have it???
+ Get a scroll of Wind Wall
- What if I don't have it???
+ Then flee and buy any one of those options
- What if I can't flee???
+ Then TPK and reconsider your nearsightedness. Honestly, if you have deliberately spent NO resources to face swarms, stop complaining about them!
Focus on home games, refusal to adapt, etc. the thread might be locked, this goes nowhere.
I'd have to agree.
But I'm curious; why is a focus on home games part of a reason to lock a thread?Also, I think I'm in agreement with both opposed parties; players should come prepared, and swarms are not an especially interesting or compelling encounter in their own right.
I especially like Goblin_Priest's take as swarms being an element of an encounter,rather than it's heart and soul. That is evidence of some well-crafted games, right there.
Swarms exist, on purpose, let's agree on that, first and foremost...
Now, if any player of any class has any incentive to go about adventuring with the most basic level of preparation...
Lamp Oil
Acid Flasks
Alchemist Fire
Splintercloud Arrows
Caltrop Beads
Pellet Grenades
...
Scrolls
...
Wands
...
Have you no preparation? I smite you for your incompetence, you know not the table you tread...
Edit: the F!CK!NG Swarmbane Clasp...!
PS. Cry, b!tches, cry! Boo-boo! Here's a swarm, now deal with it like it's a part of the game!
As a player, I always work from the assumption that the GM won't be going easy on me. (If I'm wrong, this assumption isn't a problem. If I'm right, this assumption is essential.)
Pathfinder (1e) is the sort of game where an effective party has to specifically prepare for a lot of types of danger. There are all sorts of things you have to learn that are incredibly deadly unless you have Death Ward, or Freedom of Movement, or Protection From Evil, or something like that.
As a player, I will think, "This party lacks a good AoE character. I should stock up on Alchemist Fires and Acids and buy a Clasp at the point when I can afford it, in case we meet a Red Tick Swarm or similar."
Or: "As a Cleric I didn't prep any AoE but I can Summon a Bralani Azata, that will help."
However, as a GM, I will take into account the type of players I'm dealing with. Like I said, there's a lot of stuff to learn in Pathfinder and maybe they're newbies who are just going to pick options that sound fun.
I have no desire to end a campaign like this:
GM: "Ha ha! You all died pointlessly! I got you!"
Player: "Yeah, by making us fight something that we couldn't hurt and which could move faster than us."
GM: "It's your own fault. You had the opportunity to make a more balanced party, or to buy a Swarmbane Clasp."
Player: "What's a Swarmbane Clasp?"
GM: "You know, from Ultimate Equipment."
Player: "What's Ultimate Equipment?"
I am not ignoring your suggestions nor are they being dismissed for no reason. The vescovar swarm straight up resists the majority of them based on its elemental resistance to fire: alchemists fire, lamp oil, low level wands and scrolls of things like burning hands—you know, the items most commonly stocked when swarms are anticipated.
Acid and splintercloud arrows are not terrible but offer very low damage versus a creature with 47hp’s—hope you brought a lot rather than the couple/few people have suggested and normally stock. The pellet grenades are your best suggestion but the fire is resisted, they have a saving throw the vescovar will succeed on half of the time to halve the damage it isn’t straight up resisting and they are quite expensive for the amount of damage they actually impart to the swarm—hope you brought a lot more of those than you were suggested to as well.
You, OTOH, are completely ignoring the fact that swarms don’t actually attack, they simply have to occupy a character’s square. The vescovar swarm’s speed is 30’/40’ fly so the characters will be forced to double move or risk their square being occupied; any dorf or character in heavy armour will have to run, let’s hope there is a clear lane of unobstructed terrain to facilitate this, right? Who is chucking a dozen grenades, throwing twenty acid flasks or firing two dozen splintercloud arrows at this thing while not being swarmed by it, taking more damage on average than they are inflicting?
And finally, you haven’t once addressed the vescovar swarm’s supernatural attacks. The saving throws are on the low side, conveniently right around what any scroll you’ve suggested to deal with the swarm will have for a DC. The risk of succumbing to confusion and/or madness cannot be ignored in the manner you have chosen to unless we are also going to dismiss out-of-hand the possibility of the swarm succumbing to wind wall.
I asked Mark Hoover what the investigator in his party should be doing to prepare themself against the upcoming vescovar swarm not what people can do against swarms in general. Most of the generalized advice isn’t a solution against this particular mob, which is nasty and represents a far greater challenge to certain character-types not in possession of one specialized piece of gear than the CR5 indicates. When you ignore the particulars of a creature you’ve been presented, of course your solutions all seem like great ideas. When your answer is Schrodinger’s swarm fighter—a character packed to the brim with the perfect type and quantity of gear to fight any and all types of swarms—of course your solutions all seem like great ideas.
There are very few encounters in PF that require such a small array of specific equipment to overcome in the way that swarms do; it is the binary condition of “have that equipment or fail” that rankles for most.
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Swarms are uniquely b u l l s h i t because they shine a light on a fundamental flaw of the game - the fact that martials don't have any AoE capabilities.This is 100% wrong.
Any character that chooses to put even minimal resources into it can kill swarms.
It has nothing to do with martial vs. caster. It is a basic question of, "did you come prepared."
Any character can carry alchemist fire or Acid flasks.
If you feel really paranoid, pack a few pellet grenades. 3d6 damage with a 10' radius.
Or, you can keep complaining about what your character cannot do instead of asking, "How can my character do this?"
None of what you mentioned is relevant outside of the very earliest levels. Outside of a Swarmbane Clasp (which I already mentioned in my original post), there is no reliable way for a martial to meaningfully damage a mid-to-high level swarm.
This is problematic, because it takes up a valuable slot and does absolutely nothing for you 99.99% of the time, when you aren't fighting swarms.
There's been talk of simply switching neck slot items, but you're kidding yourself if you don't expect massive table variance in how GMs will rule such a thing.
Outside of a Swarmbane Clasp, your next best move is to abandon pretending to be a martial and just crib some spells of a scroll. But even then, relying on consumables to defeat specific enemies is not really viable in long term campaigns.
Spider Swarms are CR1 and have an average of 9 HP.
Lamp Oil costs 1 SILVER can be used like Alch Fire (so 1d6 dmg w/ 50% chance to go off), OR, it can be used to douse a 5ft square for 2 rounds causing 1d3 damage each round.
Alchemist's Fire costs 20gp and deals 1d6 dmg.
.
Honestly, there's no reason a level 1 party cannot afford these things. The only excuse you wouldn't have them is if you didn't prepare. And if that's the case, like I said earlier, running is a perfectly acceptable answer to a swarm.
For levels 4+, Scrolls of Repel Vermin are available for the dirt cheap "cover your ass" cost of 375gp and provide 10mins/lvl protection against vermin. Or, buy that aforementioned Swarmbane Clasp for 3,000gp for a more permanent solution.
For the cheap seats, I'm not talking about swarms of tiny vermin with 9hp's on average. My concern is with the higher level, more difficult swarms; the ones with dozens of hp's comprised of diminutive creatures with elemental resistances and special attacks of their own as I mentioned
What do the martials do against Mark Hoover's vescovar swarm if they do not happen to have a swarmbane clasp? WTF good is an alchemist's fire against a swarm with fire resist 10?? A scroll of repel vermin is useless because vescovar are not vermin. Even if they were, scrolls are also a terribly unreliable way to cast spells with saves due to the low saving throws they require. The non-casters can't hit it because vescovar are diminutive. How many flasks of acid and for how many rounds are they going to throw them for to do 47hp's? Meanwhile they're taking 2d6hp of damage each round they are caught in the swarm, which is perfectly within the realm of possibility, without even taking terrain and/or room size limitations into account, thanks to the confusion effect the swarm emits in a 15' radius. The DC is fairly low but we are talking about martials i.e. classes with generally poor will saves....
Vescovar Swarm is CR5 and WBL at level 5 is 10,500gp. So that's 42,000gp in a 4 person group, 52,500gp if you have 5 PC's. Are you seriously telling me that your party has zero ability to AoE, and as a group who can be pooling resources, you cannot afford 3,000gp for a Swarmbane Clasp or 2,700gp for a Necklace of Fireballs?
Personally, I think every group should have a Necklace of Fireballs, or even two of them, at all times, and even if your group has access to Fireball. A single Necklace of Fireballs can cause absolutely massive amounts of damage to a large area. Just toss the whole necklace and cast Spark on it (or use a Torch if you don't have any magic), and depending on the level of Necklace you purchased, you're talking 11d6 to 58d6 damage. They work on swarms, BBEG's, setting ambushes (or countering them), causing a distraction by blowing up the armory while you sneak into the tower, w/e you want.
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Vescovar Swarm is CR5 and WBL at level 5 is 10,500gp. So that's 42,000gp in a 4 person group, 52,500gp if you have 5 PC's. Are you seriously telling me that your party has zero ability to AoE, and as a group who can be pooling resources, you cannot afford 3,000gp for a Swarmbane Clasp or 2,700gp for a Necklace of Fireballs?
3000 GP is 7.1% of the parties wealth in this example, which will likely be useful in 1-2% of encounters, so it's fairly expensive.
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Vescovar Swarm is CR5 and WBL at level 5 is 10,500gp. So that's 42,000gp in a 4 person group, 52,500gp if you have 5 PC's. Are you seriously telling me that your party has zero ability to AoE, and as a group who can be pooling resources, you cannot afford 3,000gp for a Swarmbane Clasp or 2,700gp for a Necklace of Fireballs?3000 GP is 7.1% of the parties wealth in this example, which will be useful in 1-2% of encounters, so it's fairly expensive.
Is it? How much do you value a TPK then?
Those 3000gp will quickly become negligible, while swarms, while rare, will stay relevant throughout the whole gameplay.
About 5 sessions ago, my PC's went down into the sewers of a major city and I threw several swarms of Ghost Rats at them. It wasn't an arbitrary swarm encounter, there was a storyline purpose for why they were there and also why they didn't travel up to the major city. Anywho, they had to do a bit of prep first before they could go any further. So they had to go back to town and wait a day, to enchant their weapons with ghost touch and make sure they had more aoe spells prepared than they usually do, but they eventually made it through whilst losing minimal HP and Str damage.
And like I said before, if you run into a Swarm that you're not prepared for, RUN. Go back to town and get what you need, then come back and kill it. This same thing applies to any enemy, not just swarms, to be quite frank. If you come across a Medusa or a Basilisk and you have no response to gaze attacks or petrification, wouldn't you go back to town and get a Lidless Charm Bracelet, or some scrolls of Medusa's Bane, Break Enchantment, or Stone to Flesh? Or do you just run in there and try to kill it, meanwhile getting half or more of your group petrified in the process?
I certainly hope that you use at least a little bit of strategy while playing this game.
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General Protection Vs. Swarms:
Level 1-3: Alch Fire & Lantern Oil Molotov Cocktails
Level 4+: Swarmbane Clasp and Necklace of Fireballs
Level 1-20: Literally any AoE Spell that causes damage
If the above mentioned items do not take care of your particular swarm, then RUN.
Any specialty swarms (like the ghost rats-- they're not an actual thing, I made them up) might need some additional preparation, but they're no different than any other enemy you'd have to stop and prep for.
Vescovar Swarm is CR5 and WBL at level 5 is 10,500gp. So that's 42,000gp in a 4 person group, 52,500gp if you have 5 PC's. Are you seriously telling me that your party has zero ability to AoE, and as a group who can be pooling resources, you cannot afford 3,000gp for a Swarmbane Clasp or 2,700gp for a Necklace of Fireballs?3000 GP is 7.1% of the parties wealth in this example, which will likely be useful in 1-2% of encounters, so it's fairly expensive.
Then get a Necklace of Fireballs. It has literally a thousand situations you can use it on, including swarms. A Necklace of Fireballs II is 2700g and causes 16d6 Fire damage. Eventually you'll be level 8 and buying a 3,000 Swarmbane Clasp would be much more affordable, and if you haven't run into a Swarm by then, the Necklace of Fireballs II can still be used on anything you want.
Here comes 18,000 people saying that they have never heard of a Necklace of Fireballs. Lol.
That doesn't exist, definitely not laying around in random loot. Lol.
It does exist. And they are in random loot. Even in the Stolen Lands...
Interestingly enough...
I handed out 'random' items as a reward, once - each person in the party could choose one.
One was a swarmbane clasp. They traded it away. Later on, when the swarms hit, they yelled at me about how unfair swarms are.
Sunday, I almost killed two characters in my new game (many of the same players) with a centipede swarm.
...it's not my fault if players refuse to learn...or prepare...or run.
Yep.
At level 5, you have to have an answer for flying opponents because the spell Fly is a thing. Witches with Flight Hex are a thing. Many monsters under CR5 can fly anyway, so you *should* have an answer to flying monsters well before that, but if your party has no response to flying things by level 5 then I also have no sympathy when you cannot hit the flying level 5 Sorcerer/Wizard/Witch/Alchemist/Shaman/Magus/Psychic.
Same thing for petrification and/or gaze attacks by level 5/7 because Basilisks are CR5 and Medusas are CR7. Swarms are a thing at CR1, so have a response. I've seen a level 1-2 PFS PbP game with a CR2 Swarm of Bats.
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Tbqh, if you don't have a response to certain things by certain levels, I will generally have zero sympathy for you. And, honestly, there's NO SHAME IN RUNNING. IT'S A VIABLE TACTIC FOR ANYTHING THAT WILL KILL YOU. IF YOU DON'T LIKE "RUNNING AWAY", THEN YOU CAN "TACTICALLY CHARGE IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION PENDING ACQUISITION OF SCENARIO-APPLICABLE RESOURCES".
Same here. Players tend to do all in their power to prevent escape. Escape tends to mean lost loot, reinforcements, and just not having the satisfaction of finishing the challenge.
At our table, we'll often be willing to expend great resources to prevent a bad guy from fleeing. Often not even important bad guys. Bad guy fell in the water and will drown? NUH UH! "I jump in the water to catch him and bring him back to the surface! No way we are losing that loot!" They get on a boat and sail away? "NUH UH! I throw a grappling hook and tie the boat to the dock, and then jump aboard their ship!" Expeditious Retreat, Boots of Speed, Quickrunner's Shirt, Hold Person, Grease, etc., there are lots of means to cut off retreat.
And as MH330 said, running away is dangerous. Sure, there's the full retreat option that helps, but overall you expose yourself to more attacks of opportunity than anything. The party is likely to have one guy that's super fast and can catch up with just about any enemy. But the party is unlikely to be made of nothing but really quick guys that can run away from anything.
So sure, some GMs will have the approach of "too bad for them, they'll just die and learn to be cowards". But if you know ahead of time they will fight to the death, must you really send them a challenge they can't survive?
Forcing the players to flee will cheapen the experience of many players. They want to play heroes who prevail against all odds, not cowards. I do think some lows allow to better make the highs noticeable and memorable, and the lows can be memorable on their own, but I don't really see total party wipes as being desirable of themselves. And there's a difference between "oops, didn't think it'd turn so poorly" and "hah, random monster table decided that they should die today, and thus they will".
There's a difference between "never send anything challenging" and "not sending foes the party is unequipped to deal with".
Last session, we had a total party wipe (or just about, two dudes did manage to flee actually, out of the eight PCs I think we were that night). But it was still epic, and we had a blast.
Switching that buffed up devil squad that, with different choices, we could have beaten, for some buffed up Fickle Winds + Spell Resistance + Resist Energy + Ironskin hellwasp swarms, eh, I don't think anyone would have found that fun at all.
There's "being challenged", and there's "being the GM's punching bag". The odds of the players enjoying the defeat drastically decrease if their bad decisions predate the encounter, and significantly moreso if their bad decisions predate the session. "You should have expected to fight this thing that's full of immunities and that has just one weakness but that I never sent against you before" isn't likely to go well. And it's really just encouraging a meta paranoid attitude that will then just slow down the game as the party tries to prepare for any niche potential threat.
as I mentioned previously, There just isn't a system in place in Pathfinder to support a tactical retreat. in an actual combat situation, I somehow doubt that the success or failure of one side's withdrawal was entirely dependent upon whether or not they could collectively run the hundred yard dash faster than the other side. that's more of a predator and prey type situation, and if the players find themselves in one of those and want to retreat, then things are already looking pretty grim.
I always strive to break my players Of what I refer to as video game mentality. The belief that you can overcome a challenge simply because you have encountered you have encountered it is one such aspect of that viewpoint.
at most of my games, the players look for any way around a situation that doesn't involve combat, even if their character's primary strengths are in combat.
What's more important, though, is knowing when an encounter is over. An encounter is not a combat. An encounter is not over when every single member of one side or the other is slain or captured. once the outcome becomes clear, any further dice rolls are pointless tedium.
As a side note, I don't use much in the way of pre- existing magic items, so things like the swarmbane clasp and a necklace of fireballs will not be nearly as common in any of my games. I have a strong distaste for Ye Olde Magik Item Shoppe in any story except those with the mist fantastical and over-the-top elements. I want magic in my games to feel strange and mysterious, and effect that is somewhat damaged when the players are able to root through the two-for-one bargain bin of magic knickknacks.
And even if I am going for a Bazaar of Wonders feel, I still want magic to feel, well, wondrous. So copy/paste'ing obscure and super specific (and unfortunately, in this case, boring) items is less than ideal.
And I try to avoid the "run away to get more specific resources to combat this exact problem again tomorrow" stuff at all costs. It just KILLS the pacing and removes any sense of long-term stakes. That sort of thing works for a Gygaxian dungeon-crawl, but that's about it. When you're trying to uncover the truth behind some murders and prevent and all-all-out war while also struggling not to freeze to death out in the Arctic wilderness and you come across a challenge you cannot overcome, running back to the last village and holing up for a day or two to prepare isn't an option. At least, not if your story teller has the sense to keep narrative pressure on you and create a tense, interesting game.
That's always how I've run it. I assumed the logic behind that ruling was that bludgeoning weapons have a larger contact surface. If you're taking a swing at a pile of rats, you'll make more contact with a bat then you will with a knife. Or a spear.
I don't think swarms are too bad. But then again, I don't run them very often.
I think that most of the issue with swarms can be resolved with a greater understanding of encounter-building/running in general.
I certainly agree that most "swarms" should be largely nonlethal environmental hazards. It just makes more sense. Rats and bats, especially. It's fairly common to see those guys in large numbers, but a situation where they are a dire threat to the PC's should be a fantastical one.
It's funny that R to the K mentions running as a viable option. My players don't feel the same. Just as they over-optimize their characters for dealing one type of damage as if DR, immunities and Energy Resistance isn't a thing at higher levels, they also never even consider that running away is a thing.
You should run Rapan Athuk for them.