Combating swarms [Archive] - Wizards Community

Combating swarms [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Harzerkatze
08-02-05, 04:59 AM On the D&d Website, an article called "Winning Tactics Against Swarms (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050802a)" just went up. Now swarms are among the most dangerous things a party can encounter when looking at their challange ratings. But I found the article poorly develloped, leaving out major tipps and overstating minor ones. So I wanted to start a thread for ideas forgotten or misstated in the article.
My comments:
- Forget about the laterns, flasks of acid or alchemist's fire bottles. They are not "wonderfully effective", dealing 1 1/2 d6 points of damage to a swarm is not going to help you much. One-shot spells like burning hands face a similar problem.
- Using torches may work if you have enough attacks, but with an average of 2 points of damage per hit, you still fight a steep uphill battle.
- The best low-level spell that i know of is the level 2 druid and sorcerer/wizard spell "flaming sphere" (or numbing sphere from Frostburn). Dealing 3d6 of damage every round (area spells do extra damage to swarms) is really quite effective.

Other suggestions?
Da Dinictus
08-02-05, 09:18 AM If you have Complete Divine, there's always Dragon's Breath. Best options for good characters is to emulate a gold dragon's breath for fire, though if you don't mind casting evil spells, the chromatic dragons' breaths come into play. Damage is 1d8 per two caster levels to a maximum of 10d8, and usable as any dragon's breath every 1d4 rounds.
Keenath
08-02-05, 09:38 AM Flaming sphere isn't an area spell, it's an effect spell. Area spells have the word "Area" in their stat block. So you deal only 2d6 damage, and furthermore swarms have good reflex saves -- a successful save negates all damage from the sphere for that turn.

Flaming spheres aren't the ultimate swarm-killer.

Honestly, a party under level 5 (where they pick up the two big area spells) is probably in trouble. I don't see why you pick on alchemist fire and oilcans (aka molotov cocktails) -- those are probably the two best weapons you have before 5th level. Alchie Fire is an area effect, dealing double damage, and it's almost impossible to miss a swarm with a grenadelike weapon. 2d6 isn't bad, since the two swarms you're likely to see at 4th level or below have 18 or 31 HP, respectively.

Burning hands is a great killer of bugs, and I don't know why you denegrate it. It's one of the few 1st level area spells, so you get double damage out of it... that's quite a few d4s you're looking at, and again, you have to think in terms of level 1-4 HP totals. After that, the wizard is the designated swarm-killer (or any other caster with area effect spells, really).

Given that most swarms are immune to weapon damage, throwing fire and swinging torches is the best that your fighter can probably do, so I don't think it's that terrible to make a point of it in the article.
TheMagister
08-02-05, 10:48 AM This is just what I think.

When you throw a flask of acid at a creature, you deal 1d6 damage on a direct hit.

The inhabitant of every square around that creature takes 1 point of splash damage from the spray (paraphrased from the PHB. pg.158).

Seems like you could simply target the center of the swarm and deal 9 points of acid damage to a swarm (not shabby at all). You can't ever deal 1d6 damage to a swarm with an acid attack because you can't break an acid flask on an individual creature that's part of a swarm...they're too little.

The only reason you can't wipe out entire SECTIONS of a swarm with one acid flask is that the swarm draws from a single pool of hit points (MM pg.315). Otherwise, each component creature in each of nine 5 ft. squares would take 1 point of damage (enough to kill all but the toughest normal insects).

Even a hellwasp swarm would be dispersed by 10 flasks of acid that only need to hit an AC 5 square. That's really not so tough, and totally discounts the existance of a party spellcaster that can fry the swarm with a serious Direct Damage area spell like lightning bolt. Even a flamestrike would do serious damage.

Flasks of alchemist's fire follow the same rules as acid flasks.

A flask of oil poured out onto a smooth surface and ignited deals 1d3 x 1.5 points of fire damage to a 5 ft. area of a swarm (acid and alchemist's fire are still better choices because of the splash damage).

A neat trick for a low level wizard to do is to cast a web spell around his swarmed companions and then ignite it with a burning hands or have a companion just use a torch. A burning web deals 2d4 damage to any creature caught in the area, and burns at a rate of 5 ft./round in an expanding ring. Swarms in the area will take 2d4 x 1.5 fire damage, making it an effective trade off if your party members can stand the heat for one round (your teammate will only take 2d4 damage once, a swarm that covers a 10 ft. area will take 2d4 x 1.5 fire damage at least twice, if my mental image is correct).

That's all I want to think of ATM.

TM
Harzerkatze
08-02-05, 10:51 AM Hmmm. Didn't realize that about flaming sphere. To me, a 5 foot sphere was similar in effect to a 30 foot spread, both fill an area with fire, says the mathematician in me. If the first isn't technically an area, it changes the usefulness, of course.
James Wildspell
08-02-05, 11:15 AM The best defence against Swarms is selective homicide. Just kill the DM. :mymy:
Tony Vargas
08-02-05, 01:33 PM Swarms are pretty scary, and not just because they're icky - it's also because the mechanics are kind of stilted.

IMHO, Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack should be potentially effective against swarms. Great Cleave should reasonably allow you to do full damage vs a swarm with a weapon, and WWA should do likewise and count as an area attack.
Keenath
08-02-05, 02:25 PM A flask of oil poiured out onto a smooth surface and ignited deals 1d3 x 1.5 points of fire damage to a 5 ft. area of a swarm (acid and alchemist's fire are still better choices because of the splash damage).If you put a fuse in a canister of oil, like a molotov cocktail, it's identical to alchemist's fire (except it has only a 50% chance of working and takes a full round action to fuse, light, and throw). Equipment chapter, "oil".
Keenath
08-02-05, 02:30 PM IMHO, Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack should be potentially effective against swarms. Great Cleave should reasonably allow you to do full damage vs a swarm with a weapon, and WWA should do likewise and count as an area attack.Eh... I just don't see it. Whirlwind isn't like you're creating a spinning disk of blades around you... it means that, within six seconds, you can turn a complete circle and make one attack against everyone you can reach. That's not the same as trying to stab a horde of tiny creatures like bats, and you'd do better against bugs with a good pair of Boost of Squashing.

Great Cleave is kind of the the same -- swarms don't stop your blade like cutting a body would anyway. A great-cleaver has no advantage over a normal guy with an axe. Your half-damage hit kills X number of individual swarmers, and having cleave or not makes no difference.
Tony Vargas
08-02-05, 02:55 PM That's not the same as trying to stab a horde of tiny creatures like bats, and you'd do better against bugs with a good pair of Boost of Squashing. Well, if you're surrounded by tiny creatures at the usual maximum #/square, you can hit all of them with WWA. If you're surrounded by tiny creatures with fewer per square than constitutes a swarm, but still beyond the normal limits, they're 'squeezing,' and it's even easier to hit them all. In either case, if you didn't have WWA or Cleave, and had a 6 BAB, you'd be hitting two at a time. But add a few more, so they constitute a swarm, and suddenly the WWA guy is hitting just like the no-feats guy. That doesn't seem right, either.

Great Cleave is kind of the the same -- swarms don't stop your blade like cutting a body would anyway. A great-cleaver has no advantage over a normal guy with an axe. Your half-damage hit kills X number of individual swarmers, and having cleave or not makes no difference. I can kinda see that. Great Cleave being assumed in that sense - but, really, a Great-Cleaver should be /better/ at that sort of thing than someone without it. And, it's not like doing full rather than half damage nullifies the swarm's substantial advantages over a normal collection of such creatures.
The WarOverlord
08-02-05, 04:25 PM On the D&d Website, an article called "Winning Tactics Against Swarms (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050802a)" just went up. Now swarms are among the most dangerous things a party can encounter when looking at their challange ratings. But I found the article poorly develloped, leaving out major tipps and overstating minor ones. So I wanted to start a thread for ideas forgotten or misstated in the article.
My comments:
- Forget about the laterns, flasks of acid or alchemist's fire bottles. They are not "wonderfully effective", dealing 1 1/2 d6 points of damage to a swarm is not going to help you much. One-shot spells like burning hands face a similar problem.
- Using torches may work if you have enough attacks, but with an average of 2 points of damage per hit, you still fight a steep uphill battle.
- The best low-level spell that i know of is the level 2 druid and sorcerer/wizard spell "flaming sphere" (or numbing sphere from Frostburn). Dealing 3d6 of damage every round (area spells do extra damage to swarms) is really quite effective.

Other suggestions?

Created alternative Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball spells for close and personal 1:1 combat named "Ground Zero safe Fireball" and "Ground Zero Safe Delayed Blast Fireball"........basically the caster cast the spell on himself/herself then "KABOOM" everything and everyone around them is incinerated with the Caster being safely in the middle of the blast.
Akharu
08-02-05, 04:34 PM I'm amused that there are people that think Whirlwind Attack would do jack against a swarm.
Mephibosheth
08-02-05, 04:44 PM Remember (and the WotC article mentions this) that weapons that deal energy damage deal their full energy damage to the swarm. Thus, your fighter's scimitar may not cut any of the little buggers, but the trail of flame your slash leaves in its wake will sure has heck char some. And, since energy enhancements are some of the cheapest and most popular weapon upgrades, your party fighter should still be able to dish out some damage to that pesky swarm the conventional way!
Centauri
08-02-05, 04:52 PM I'm amused that there are people that think Whirlwind Attack would do jack against a swarm. Yeah, if nothing else, I'd think someone with Whirlwind Attack could make one attack against the swarm in every in-range square it occupied (possibly including a few overhead). Alas, I must houserule this if I want it.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Harzerkatze 08-02-05, 04:59 AM	On the D&d Website, an article called "Winning Tactics Against Swarms (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050802a)" just went up. Now swarms are among the most dangerous things a party can encounter when looking at their challange ratings. But I found the article poorly develloped, leaving out major tipps and overstating minor ones. So I wanted to start a thread for ideas forgotten or misstated in the article. My comments: - Forget about the laterns, flasks of acid or alchemist's fire bottles. They are not "wonderfully effective", dealing 1 1/2 d6 points of damage to a swarm is not going to help you much. One-shot spells like burning hands face a similar problem. - Using torches may work if you have enough attacks, but with an average of 2 points of damage per hit, you still fight a steep uphill battle. - The best low-level spell that i know of is the level 2 druid and sorcerer/wizard spell "flaming sphere" (or numbing sphere from Frostburn). Dealing 3d6 of damage every round (area spells do extra damage to swarms) is really quite effective. Other suggestions?
Da Dinictus 08-02-05, 09:18 AM	If you have Complete Divine, there's always Dragon's Breath. Best options for good characters is to emulate a gold dragon's breath for fire, though if you don't mind casting evil spells, the chromatic dragons' breaths come into play. Damage is 1d8 per two caster levels to a maximum of 10d8, and usable as any dragon's breath every 1d4 rounds.
Keenath 08-02-05, 09:38 AM	Flaming sphere isn't an area spell, it's an effect spell. Area spells have the word "Area" in their stat block. So you deal only 2d6 damage, and furthermore swarms have good reflex saves -- a successful save negates all damage from the sphere for that turn. Flaming spheres aren't the ultimate swarm-killer. Honestly, a party under level 5 (where they pick up the two big area spells) is probably in trouble. I don't see why you pick on alchemist fire and oilcans (aka molotov cocktails) -- those are probably the two best weapons you have before 5th level. Alchie Fire is an area effect, dealing double damage, and it's almost impossible to miss a swarm with a grenadelike weapon. 2d6 isn't bad, since the two swarms you're likely to see at 4th level or below have 18 or 31 HP, respectively. Burning hands is a great killer of bugs, and I don't know why you denegrate it. It's one of the few 1st level area spells, so you get double damage out of it... that's quite a few d4s you're looking at, and again, you have to think in terms of level 1-4 HP totals. After that, the wizard is the designated swarm-killer (or any other caster with area effect spells, really). Given that most swarms are immune to weapon damage, throwing fire and swinging torches is the best that your fighter can probably do, so I don't think it's that terrible to make a point of it in the article.
TheMagister 08-02-05, 10:48 AM	This is just what I think. When you throw a flask of acid at a creature, you deal 1d6 damage on a direct hit. The inhabitant of every square around that creature takes 1 point of splash damage from the spray (paraphrased from the PHB. pg.158). Seems like you could simply target the center of the swarm and deal 9 points of acid damage to a swarm (not shabby at all). You can't ever deal 1d6 damage to a swarm with an acid attack because you can't break an acid flask on an individual creature that's part of a swarm...they're too little. The only reason you can't wipe out entire SECTIONS of a swarm with one acid flask is that the swarm draws from a single pool of hit points (MM pg.315). Otherwise, each component creature in each of nine 5 ft. squares would take 1 point of damage (enough to kill all but the toughest normal insects). Even a hellwasp swarm would be dispersed by 10 flasks of acid that only need to hit an AC 5 square. That's really not so tough, and totally discounts the existance of a party spellcaster that can fry the swarm with a serious Direct Damage area spell like lightning bolt. Even a flamestrike would do serious damage. Flasks of alchemist's fire follow the same rules as acid flasks. A flask of oil poured out onto a smooth surface and ignited deals 1d3 x 1.5 points of fire damage to a 5 ft. area of a swarm (acid and alchemist's fire are still better choices because of the splash damage). A neat trick for a low level wizard to do is to cast a web spell around his swarmed companions and then ignite it with a burning hands or have a companion just use a torch. A burning web deals 2d4 damage to any creature caught in the area, and burns at a rate of 5 ft./round in an expanding ring. Swarms in the area will take 2d4 x 1.5 fire damage, making it an effective trade off if your party members can stand the heat for one round (your teammate will only take 2d4 damage once, a swarm that covers a 10 ft. area will take 2d4 x 1.5 fire damage at least twice, if my mental image is correct). That's all I want to think of ATM. TM
Harzerkatze 08-02-05, 10:51 AM	Hmmm. Didn't realize that about flaming sphere. To me, a 5 foot sphere was similar in effect to a 30 foot spread, both fill an area with fire, says the mathematician in me. If the first isn't technically an area, it changes the usefulness, of course.
James Wildspell 08-02-05, 11:15 AM	The best defence against Swarms is selective homicide. Just kill the DM. :mymy:
Tony Vargas 08-02-05, 01:33 PM	Swarms are pretty scary, and not just because they're icky - it's also because the mechanics are kind of stilted. IMHO, Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack should be potentially effective against swarms. Great Cleave should reasonably allow you to do full damage vs a swarm with a weapon, and WWA should do likewise and count as an area attack.
Keenath 08-02-05, 02:25 PM	A flask of oil poiured out onto a smooth surface and ignited deals 1d3 x 1.5 points of fire damage to a 5 ft. area of a swarm (acid and alchemist's fire are still better choices because of the splash damage).If you put a fuse in a canister of oil, like a molotov cocktail, it's identical to alchemist's fire (except it has only a 50% chance of working and takes a full round action to fuse, light, and throw). Equipment chapter, "oil".
Keenath 08-02-05, 02:30 PM	IMHO, Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack should be potentially effective against swarms. Great Cleave should reasonably allow you to do full damage vs a swarm with a weapon, and WWA should do likewise and count as an area attack.Eh... I just don't see it. Whirlwind isn't like you're creating a spinning disk of blades around you... it means that, within six seconds, you can turn a complete circle and make one attack against everyone you can reach. That's not the same as trying to stab a horde of tiny creatures like bats, and you'd do better against bugs with a good pair of Boost of Squashing. Great Cleave is kind of the the same -- swarms don't stop your blade like cutting a body would anyway. A great-cleaver has no advantage over a normal guy with an axe. Your half-damage hit kills X number of individual swarmers, and having cleave or not makes no difference.
Tony Vargas 08-02-05, 02:55 PM	That's not the same as trying to stab a horde of tiny creatures like bats, and you'd do better against bugs with a good pair of Boost of Squashing. Well, if you're surrounded by tiny creatures at the usual maximum #/square, you can hit all of them with WWA. If you're surrounded by tiny creatures with fewer per square than constitutes a swarm, but still beyond the normal limits, they're 'squeezing,' and it's even easier to hit them all. In either case, if you didn't have WWA or Cleave, and had a 6 BAB, you'd be hitting two at a time. But add a few more, so they constitute a swarm, and suddenly the WWA guy is hitting just like the no-feats guy. That doesn't seem right, either. Great Cleave is kind of the the same -- swarms don't stop your blade like cutting a body would anyway. A great-cleaver has no advantage over a normal guy with an axe. Your half-damage hit kills X number of individual swarmers, and having cleave or not makes no difference. I can kinda see that. Great Cleave being assumed in that sense - but, really, a Great-Cleaver should be /better/ at that sort of thing than someone without it. And, it's not like doing full rather than half damage nullifies the swarm's substantial advantages over a normal collection of such creatures.
The WarOverlord 08-02-05, 04:25 PM	On the D&d Website, an article called "Winning Tactics Against Swarms (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050802a)" just went up. Now swarms are among the most dangerous things a party can encounter when looking at their challange ratings. But I found the article poorly develloped, leaving out major tipps and overstating minor ones. So I wanted to start a thread for ideas forgotten or misstated in the article. My comments: - Forget about the laterns, flasks of acid or alchemist's fire bottles. They are not "wonderfully effective", dealing 1 1/2 d6 points of damage to a swarm is not going to help you much. One-shot spells like burning hands face a similar problem. - Using torches may work if you have enough attacks, but with an average of 2 points of damage per hit, you still fight a steep uphill battle. - The best low-level spell that i know of is the level 2 druid and sorcerer/wizard spell "flaming sphere" (or numbing sphere from Frostburn). Dealing 3d6 of damage every round (area spells do extra damage to swarms) is really quite effective. Other suggestions? Created alternative Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball spells for close and personal 1:1 combat named "Ground Zero safe Fireball" and "Ground Zero Safe Delayed Blast Fireball"........basically the caster cast the spell on himself/herself then "KABOOM" everything and everyone around them is incinerated with the Caster being safely in the middle of the blast.
Akharu 08-02-05, 04:34 PM	I'm amused that there are people that think Whirlwind Attack would do jack against a swarm.
Mephibosheth 08-02-05, 04:44 PM	Remember (and the WotC article mentions this) that weapons that deal energy damage deal their full energy damage to the swarm. Thus, your fighter's scimitar may not cut any of the little buggers, but the trail of flame your slash leaves in its wake will sure has heck char some. And, since energy enhancements are some of the cheapest and most popular weapon upgrades, your party fighter should still be able to dish out some damage to that pesky swarm the conventional way!
Centauri 08-02-05, 04:52 PM	I'm amused that there are people that think Whirlwind Attack would do jack against a swarm. Yeah, if nothing else, I'd think someone with Whirlwind Attack could make one attack against the swarm in every in-range square it occupied (possibly including a few overhead). Alas, I must houserule this if I want it.