Sugarbear007
2014-02-22, 01:37 AM
Howdy all :P
I've got a lil game I'm working on and I've got a bit of a question concerning swarms (rats in this instance) and spells, and then one about the difficulty of an encounter.
So first off, a sorcerer (4'th level)in the parties favorite go to spell is the toothed tentacle spell. I always figured this spell worked like a long weapon since you make to hit rolls. I noticed though when I was reading about swarms they are immune to single target spells like magic missiles. I'm really not sure if that tentacle spell counts. Yes it only hits one thing at a time (unless you full attack, which is another point in the acts like a weapon instead of a spell category) but still it acts more like a weapon attack than anything which will hit the swarm of rats.
If that is so, that the spell will be able to hit, what kind of damage would it do? The spell doesn't show in the description on the WotC website. Just says 2d6 damage. Is it slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, or some kind of pure magic damage? I just don't know if the swarm traits that say take half damage from piercing and slashing attacks would take effect.
Now onto the question of difficulty for my players next encounter.
The road taken
See the game I've been doing (everybody is a newb in this group) I've been trying to figure out where the balance is for challenge. We ran sunless citadel as our tune up dungeon. Mostly pure combat, we were just learning the rules as we went and a good time was had by all, it was the hook that got everybody to really commit to role playing.
When that was over I tied it all into a larger story arc set in the forgotten realms and in my first original battle I obliterated the party fighter with a half orc barbarian bandit, he rolled a crit on him while raging and power attacking with his great axe for x3 damage and i fudged the numbers because he hit for twice the guys HP's and didn't really want to quite go that hard yet. So that made me a little timid on difficulty because we just weren't at the point where I was comfortable letting anyone die.
Fast forward a few months, I've been working the difficulty up again. They fought a dragon two challenge levels over the party level and won. They also killed a party with some martial adepts in it with little difficulty. So I'm ready to make it a bit harder again.
Now my guys will be heading into some sewers. I'm throwing a troll at them, that should be a fun fight. I was thinking maybe a carrion crawler or two. Then I wanted to have a few rat swarms. I read people say to increase difficulty use terrain to the monsters advantage. This will be in a confined area. The swarms will probably cover most of the sewer tunnels making lots of people get hit at once and then lots of saves against disease. I was thinking 4 rat swarms since they have so few HP's but the party doesn't have a lot of ways to combat them.
The party and pertinent information about their capabilities
Fighter 4 (has a homebrew legacy heavy flail)
Rogue 3 scout 1 (going swift ambusher)
Druid 4 (is a doo'dad nough said)
Marshal 1 / duskblade 3 (we're new don't judge :P its perfect story wise)
Sorcerer 4 (wants to be blasty)
The duskblade will more than likely use hypnotic pattern to good effect (i think it will work anyway).
The rogue has slashing / piercing weapons and can't do sneak damage so he'll be a sad panda.
The fighter can smash things... that's pretty much his shtick.
The only spell I know of that the druid normally prepares that will help is the produce flame spell, since it says that weapons with fire abilities deal full damage, this looks like an instance of a spell being like a weapon since its treated as melee or range so really its the tentacle spell all over again I'm not sure here. I am assuming it can hit them and it will do maximum damage. Well she likes to summon but that might backfire since we recently figured out summons take a full round to cast (again we're learning lol)
The sorcerer will attempt to use toothed tentacle. Spells I know he has are magic missiles, mage armor, toothed tentacles, and grease. Probably grease would work out.
I'm going to drop many hints and there will be some gather information snippits about the sewers being overrun with rats. They don't buy things like alchemists fire though. Maybe 4 swarms is too many. I am afraid that I'm going to overshoot the difficulty again but instead of the side of caution its the side of oh God the rats, the rats are in my eyes!
1) Can the toothed tentacle spell target a swarm?
2) what kind of damage does it do?
3) are 4 rat swarms too much to deal with in a confined space and given the party make up provided?
Apologies if it seems a bit rambly, I'm up late working on the session (because procrastinating is a family tradition)
I've got a lil game I'm working on and I've got a bit of a question concerning swarms (rats in this instance) and spells, and then one about the difficulty of an encounter.
So first off, a sorcerer (4'th level)in the parties favorite go to spell is the toothed tentacle spell. I always figured this spell worked like a long weapon since you make to hit rolls. I noticed though when I was reading about swarms they are immune to single target spells like magic missiles. I'm really not sure if that tentacle spell counts. Yes it only hits one thing at a time (unless you full attack, which is another point in the acts like a weapon instead of a spell category) but still it acts more like a weapon attack than anything which will hit the swarm of rats.
If that is so, that the spell will be able to hit, what kind of damage would it do? The spell doesn't show in the description on the WotC website. Just says 2d6 damage. Is it slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, or some kind of pure magic damage? I just don't know if the swarm traits that say take half damage from piercing and slashing attacks would take effect.
Now onto the question of difficulty for my players next encounter.
The road taken
See the game I've been doing (everybody is a newb in this group) I've been trying to figure out where the balance is for challenge. We ran sunless citadel as our tune up dungeon. Mostly pure combat, we were just learning the rules as we went and a good time was had by all, it was the hook that got everybody to really commit to role playing.
When that was over I tied it all into a larger story arc set in the forgotten realms and in my first original battle I obliterated the party fighter with a half orc barbarian bandit, he rolled a crit on him while raging and power attacking with his great axe for x3 damage and i fudged the numbers because he hit for twice the guys HP's and didn't really want to quite go that hard yet. So that made me a little timid on difficulty because we just weren't at the point where I was comfortable letting anyone die.
Fast forward a few months, I've been working the difficulty up again. They fought a dragon two challenge levels over the party level and won. They also killed a party with some martial adepts in it with little difficulty. So I'm ready to make it a bit harder again.
Now my guys will be heading into some sewers. I'm throwing a troll at them, that should be a fun fight. I was thinking maybe a carrion crawler or two. Then I wanted to have a few rat swarms. I read people say to increase difficulty use terrain to the monsters advantage. This will be in a confined area. The swarms will probably cover most of the sewer tunnels making lots of people get hit at once and then lots of saves against disease. I was thinking 4 rat swarms since they have so few HP's but the party doesn't have a lot of ways to combat them.
The party and pertinent information about their capabilities
Fighter 4 (has a homebrew legacy heavy flail)
Rogue 3 scout 1 (going swift ambusher)
Druid 4 (is a doo'dad nough said)
Marshal 1 / duskblade 3 (we're new don't judge :P its perfect story wise)
Sorcerer 4 (wants to be blasty)
The duskblade will more than likely use hypnotic pattern to good effect (i think it will work anyway).
The rogue has slashing / piercing weapons and can't do sneak damage so he'll be a sad panda.
The fighter can smash things... that's pretty much his shtick.
The only spell I know of that the druid normally prepares that will help is the produce flame spell, since it says that weapons with fire abilities deal full damage, this looks like an instance of a spell being like a weapon since its treated as melee or range so really its the tentacle spell all over again I'm not sure here. I am assuming it can hit them and it will do maximum damage. Well she likes to summon but that might backfire since we recently figured out summons take a full round to cast (again we're learning lol)
The sorcerer will attempt to use toothed tentacle. Spells I know he has are magic missiles, mage armor, toothed tentacles, and grease. Probably grease would work out.
I'm going to drop many hints and there will be some gather information snippits about the sewers being overrun with rats. They don't buy things like alchemists fire though. Maybe 4 swarms is too many. I am afraid that I'm going to overshoot the difficulty again but instead of the side of caution its the side of oh God the rats, the rats are in my eyes!
1) Can the toothed tentacle spell target a swarm?
2) what kind of damage does it do?
3) are 4 rat swarms too much to deal with in a confined space and given the party make up provided?
Apologies if it seems a bit rambly, I'm up late working on the session (because procrastinating is a family tradition)