Additional Swarm features

[Dunamin]

I think the design on swarms in 4E as revealed in today’s article is quite reasonable, but one thing I found sorely missing: The new “Bloodied” condition seems like an obvious point to affect swarm mechanics, since you would expect swarms to be significantly less effective when they’ve lost a significant part of their numbers. Of course, with the greater focus on abstraction of hps I’m not saying that half max hp necessarily equals half number of swarm critters, but I think most D&D players and DMs have the impression that a successful attack on a swarm means that one or more members of the swarm has been disposed of.

Thus, I’m considering adding an additional trait to swarms:
When bloodied, swarms gain -2 to damage since there are fewer members contributing to attacks, but +1 to Reflex (and thus AC?) since individual members now are more dispersed.

What do you think?

 

[ShockMeSane]

Yea, that came immediately into my head as I read the preview as well. I thought to myself, surely with Bloodied being an important new condition they will use it to indicate a swarms weakened state.

I'll be houseruling something like that myself, though I'll have to play around with exact numbers.

 

[jackston2]

Things that get weaker when bloodied are kind of bad. They encourage players to use up their encounter powers too quickly, which makes for a disappointing fight.

 

[Dunamin]

Things that get weaker when bloodied are kind of bad. They encourage players to use up their encounter powers too quickly, which makes for a disappointing fight.

I'd say the main point of the bloodied condition, is to change the pace of the combat - the creature in question does not necessarily have to be significantly weaker or stronger, just fight differently or pull out a new trick.

My suggested addition means that when the swarm is significantly damaged it becomes less of a threat, but also harder to eradicate. The idea was to reflect that you can no longer chop into a thick mess of bugs and expect to hit as well or as many, when their numbers have dwindled greatly.