Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 acfarrey Sep 01, 2014 8:27:32	A few nights ago I was DMing HOTDQ. The party came upon a swarm of rats (24 HP). As I described the swarm, I told them that there were 20-30 that were buched together coming right at them. The Dragon born fighter used her breath weapon for 6 pts of damage. I said that 1/4 of them died - and the player argued that all of them should have died as it hit everything in he AOE. How should a swarm work for AOE attacks?
#2 mellored Sep 01, 2014 8:55:34	Swarms have resistance to bludoning, piercing, and slashing.  So using AoE's is definatly more affective, but they don't all die.     Flavor wise, the rats in front protected the ones in back.
#3 BW0222 Sep 01, 2014 9:12:54	RAW doesn't give swarms any specific vulnerablity against AoE damaging spells. However, the player is right in that logic assumes that a spell able to affect large numbers of creatures should be more damaging to a swarm than say magic missiles.   I would personally rule that swarms have a vulnerability to any AoE spell or attack affecting all creatures within an area. I wouldn't say every creature is killed outright -- some may be behind or under other rats, but it should be more affective than against a single target.   If you are going to with the rules as written, then I would say to the players that you understand it doesn't make sense, but that you want to play with the RAW until the end of the module/campaign. In the next campaign/module you may look at implementing some house rules. At that point, you'll have a better idea of the system, more time to reflect on things, etc. rather than implimenting rule changes without time to consider their impact.
#4 reddaemon Sep 01, 2014 11:01:10	Take a can of a flammable aerosol.  Spray it through a lighter at a swarm of bees.  Let me know if you killed them all.
#5 Yunru Sep 01, 2014 11:03:56	reddaemon wrote:
#6 AndrewJO Sep 01, 2014 13:03:02	You could take the base HP of the swarm, divide it by the estimated number of creatures in the swarm, and if an AoE spell (not attacks like volley which hit individual targets) exceeds that damage, the entire swarm would be insta-killed. That's how I'd run it if I was DMing.
#7 shivafang Sep 01, 2014 17:47:48	Swarms are made of many creatures and cover a whole area - but only where they appear en masse do they actually matter.  The 'space' they represent (5' or 10' doesn't matter) is an abstraction.   So while the bulk of the swarm is inside your area effect, there are many creatures that are not inside the area of effect.  Thus, you kill the ones in the area, but there are engouh abstracted around the swarm to replace them.  Only when you drop it's HP to 0 does the swarm disperse.
(Reply to #7) AndrewJO	shivafang wrote:
#9 shivafang Sep 01, 2014 23:02:01	AndrewJO wrote: