I had a check from a player this week. They were playing a barbarian fighting a Swarm. They didn't use their main two handed weapon as they thought it would not be effective against swarms of little creatures. I had to inform him it would work fine. In fact the bigger weapon is better as it powers through the resistance. Then he of course critted and did 60 damage destroying the Swarm.
But he was right. It should have been ineffective. Swarms are just done wrong. They should have a damage cap, not a resistance.
What do other people think?
To push back on the idea of damage cap, I would mention that it would mean that there is a guaranteed minimum number of attacks that the swarm could live through. It isn't a standard type of ability that is available anywhere else in the system.
In fact, it would completely invalidate the Death from Massive Damage rule.
Which isn't to say that swarms couldn't have something different than any other type of creature. Just mentioning that it is using a completely new and different mechanic rather than using a standard one that everyone is already expected to know.
As for narrative description, a crit - or even a regular hit - doesn't have to be described as a single stroke. Mechanically it is one Strike action. But narratively it can be described differently as the situation requires.
What do other people think?
That it's an interesting design that would favor fast attackers over big attackers.
Otherwise, there's no "logic" behind fighting a swarm with a sword so it's not better than actual ruling, the only sensible ruling would be PF1's.
PF1 did swarms better. They were more interested in a more realistic design of creatures within their framework.
PF2 is more interested in playable creature design.
Swarms should not be hit by weapons or at least not hurt very badly. A swarm is a large group of small creatures. We all understand if you get swarmed by bees trying to punch them out isn't very effective.
So I mainly don't think about it too much, but I think I would prefer they be immune to physical attacks or mostly immune. Definitely immune to crits. And hard to disperse or destroy with means other than some kind of explosive or magic.
It does push the boundaries of verisimilitude for a barbarian to land a crit swing that kills a swarm.
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Swarms should not be monsters but hazards.
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PF1 did swarms better.
PF1 swarms were goofy. Some of them were resistant to physical attacks (which makes some sense) while others were just mystically immune to physical harm entirely.
Meanwhile somehow having hundreds of an animal together would give them the ability to tank explosions that would incinerate them individually.
Oh and no matter how much you picked away at it, the swarm never lost effectiveness until hitting 0 and instantly dispersing.
... Despite that, a swarm of 300 rats actually only has four times the HP of a single individual rat. So even with damage halved someone stabbing the swarm would only need to deal enough damage to kill eight rats for the other 292 to evaporate.
... I'm not saying PF2 swarms are better, but it's weird to talk about PF1 swarms as if they made any kind of sense at all or had even a modicum of verisimilitude.
It's like incorporeal creature that got some all damage resistance instead of immunity vs non-magical in PF2. The designers sacrificed the verisimilitude in order to get a better gameplay balance to prevent the martials to become useless at level 1 vs a Ioton for example. Curiously the designers didn't take such care for OGL golems and many wisps vs casters.
Honestly I just avoid to use such creatures (swarms at all, golems, wisps or incorporeal creatures vs level 1 players without magic weapons) in order to save some of the verisimilitude.
Swarms should not be monsters but hazards.
I agree would make much more sense they being defeated by cunning than brute force.
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I think we should not focus on our own world physics and play with our mind eye. Facing a swarm as a Barbarian is not just striking stupidly at insects, the same way that facing a Gargantuan dragon doesn't consist in attacking their legs because strictly speaking you can't reach anything else without flying.
With our mind eye we can imagine the Barbarian climbing on the dragon to strike at their head and similarly we can imagine the Barbarian chanelling some power to be able to affect an incorporeal creature with their sword or striking the swarm with some super move they learned from their experience / master.
To push back on the idea of damage cap, I would mention that it would mean that there is a guaranteed minimum number of attacks that the swarm could live through. It isn't a standard type of ability that is available anywhere else in the system.
I was just trying to be descriptive as to the problem. Trying to understand that the current rules while functional don't really seem to fit the situation well.
In fact, it would completely invalidate the Death from Massive Damage rule.
That seems to be a goal I'd support. A swarm is not a creature that is hurt by being cut in half. In fact that is really the distinguishing characteristic of a swarm.
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I think we should not focus on our own world physics and play with our mind eye.
Guilty as charged. I'm far too practical. Unrealistic mechanics are very jarring to immersion for me. Especially those that seem to be opposite to reality. We have enough of them, and a certain amount of them are obviously required. Let's leave it at that.
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PF1 did swarms better.PF1 swarms were goofy. Some of them were resistant to physical attacks (which makes some sense) while others were just mystically immune to physical harm entirely.
Meanwhile somehow having hundreds of an animal together would give them the ability to tank explosions that would incinerate them individually.
Oh and no matter how much you picked away at it, the swarm never lost effectiveness until hitting 0 and instantly dispersing.
... Despite that, a swarm of 300 rats actually only has four times the HP of a single individual rat. So even with damage halved someone stabbing the swarm would only need to deal enough damage to kill eight rats for the other 292 to evaporate.
... I'm not saying PF2 swarms are better, but it's weird to talk about PF1 swarms as if they made any kind of sense at all or had even a modicum of verisimilitude.
True. PF1 wasn't perfect, but they did try a bit harder for versimilitude.
I imagine swarms could be more like hazards and may be better. Hazards harmed by specific types of attacks. You can outrun them or destroy them with ranged blast attacks if you spot them.
It would be cool if they maybe reduced the intensity of their attacks, but most creatures would be reduced in effectiveness getting the hell beat out of them but PF/D&D has never really done fatigue or wounding well. It's one of those mechanics that may add verisimilitude, but would just be annoying to track with all the other stuff there is to track.
Suffice it to say swarms could use some punching up. Maybe only allow attacking of a five foot square with a physical attack or some kind of splitting effect like oozes.
Though I'm not absolutely sure it is worth it unless you just really want to make a swarm interesting. Then I suggest as DM creating a swarm monster or scenario that really fits how you want them to feel as most generic swarms are a pretty boring encounter most groups just want to get over with.
I think a flat broad weapon (like a great sword) could be used to crush many more small/tiny critters than a maul, but it wouldn’t be by using it to make a traditional strike. I think that is the disconnect, especially as you don’t really need strength to deal with such creatures.
Interestingly, troops do have rules for resizing and HP thresholds that singular attacks can’t cross over. We will see if swarms stay the same in the monster core.
Maybe a good way to do it would be to give swarms a resistance to damage that doesn't have an area (burst, cone, etc.).
Is that in addition to, or in replacement of the weakness to area damage that they currently have?
Yeah, was about to bring up Troop Defenses. It is a a significantly more complicated ability though, and Paizo might be less inclined to use it for something as common as swarms.
Also, GM Core's Building Creatures rules make it look like swarms aren't really changing.