Swarms are owning me now

[atm]

Something seems to have changed in 3.4, and I am really unsure how to work around it. Previously, swarms would only damage you when they started their turn on you. Now they damage you the moment they move onto you instead. This sounds like a small thing, but it makes it hard to impossible to avoid getting shredded on unfair. I normally play on turn based, but even if I didn't, a lot of early swarms are in small rooms and can't really be kited. You can't see who its targeting, in order to move them out of the way, and they frankly seem to randomly retarget every turn or even multiple times per turn.

On unfair, they have too much health to kill quickly, and only some chars on the team will have aoe/elemental attacks. With focused fire, you are still going to take 5 turns to kill 5 swarms, probably more than that, and with every char unavoidably taking 10-20 damage or more every round, with disease and other effects, you aren't staying up for long.

Looking for advice for killing the swarms in Act 1. Shuddering to think what the vescavor swarms in Act 2 will be like with the new change. They were already torture with their gibber.

[Raikon]

Bookworm gives immunity to gibber, chapel tent from cleric, act 1.
Act three the spirit ring converts your damage to force, so a melee character can tear them up, and or cleave them if there is a lot of them.

[Raikon]

or is that act 2, i guess act 1 is kenabres.

[forkofspite]

AoE spells and abilities will be most effective, but using weapons, bludgeoning should deal full damage to rat and vescavor swarms. Piercing/slashing should still deal half.

[atm]

I guess my biggest issue is that I just don't know how to avoid the swarm damage now. It used to be if they went on you you could move out on your character's turn and they would just have to move onto you again on their turn. Now when they go on you (which they do every turn) you instantly take damage. On Act 1 unfair where they are doing double damage and you will rarely make the save against their other effects, this is brutal. I can't even tell if it's a bug or a feature.

[Stink Bug]

The previous behavior was actually the bug, swarms were nearly a non-threat back then. This is how they're supposed to work in PnP:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types#TOC-Swarm

Originally posted by author:

Swarm Attack: creatures with the swarm subtype don’t make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed. Swarm attacks are not subject to a miss chance for concealment or cover. A swarm’s stat block has “swarm” in the Melee entries, with no attack bonus given.

As far as how to avoid, I've just been using summons (animate dead is the easiest) and hoping they get targeted instead of my chars. Usually it works.

[Migromul]

Originally posted by atm:

Something seems to have changed in 3.4, and I am really unsure how to work around it. Previously, swarms would only damage you when they started their turn on you. Now they damage you the moment they move onto you instead. This sounds like a small thing, but it makes it hard to impossible to avoid getting shredded on unfair. I normally play on turn based, but even if I didn't, a lot of early swarms are in small rooms and can't really be kited. You can't see who its targeting, in order to move them out of the way, and they frankly seem to randomly retarget every turn or even multiple times per turn.

On unfair, they have too much health to kill quickly, and only some chars on the team will have aoe/elemental attacks. With focused fire, you are still going to take 5 turns to kill 5 swarms, probably more than that, and with every char unavoidably taking 10-20 damage or more every round, with disease and other effects, you aren't staying up for long.

Looking for advice for killing the swarms in Act 1. Shuddering to think what the vescavor swarms in Act 2 will be like with the new change. They were already torture with their gibber.

I just don't get it... Why do people always complain about the difficulty, when they play the highest out or at least 5?

If you can't manage the enemies, just lower the difficulty. Problem solved!

[forkofspite]

Originally posted by Migromul:

I just don't get it... Why do people always complain about the difficulty, when they play the highest out or at least 5?

The line is blurry, but OP is asking for advice. It only seems like a complaint.

Originally posted by atm:

I can't even tell if it's a bug or a feature.

The patch notes don't indicate that they intentionally changed how swarms act. In Through the Ashes, at least initially, swarms acted as they did in 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2. In Kingmaker, swarms align more closely with tabletop (see Stink Bug's post above).

It looks like they intentionally changed swarm behavior (presuming that the info provided in OP is accurate and works like that for others - I haven't tested), but given the lack of a comment in the patch notes, who knows?

[Stink Bug]

Originally posted by forkofspite:

Originally posted by Migromul:

I just don't get it... Why do people always complain about the difficulty, when they play the highest out or at least 5?

The line is blurry, but OP is asking for advice. It only seems like a complaint.

Originally posted by atm:

I can't even tell if it's a bug or a feature.

The patch notes don't indicate that they intentionally changed how swarms act.

1.3.3c actually mentions a brief "Fixed the swarm behavior"; while I think most people assumed it referred to the Mythic Path, given the timing it was probably the creature type.

[forkofspite]

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

1.3.3c actually mentions a brief "Fixed the swarm behavior"

So it does - not sure how I missed it when I was looking for that. It's even in the correct section (Classes & Mechanics). Makes it more likely that this is an intended change rather than a bug.

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by atm:

On unfair, they have too much health to kill quickly.

I have no advice if you are playing on unfair. You know what to do.

You'll never last until the end if you are already complaining.

It's only the beginning. This game will eat your party alive.

It's inevitable that you'll be reaching for the settings.

100% guaranteed.

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by atm:

Something seems to have changed in 3.4

Yeah, swarms did become a lot nastier.

In act 1 I dealt with swarms the following way (unfair):
- market square - bow + kiting
- house - MC polymorphed into dragon (scroll), she killed them all fast enough due to sheer strength & number of attacks
- Jeslyn - killing the ♥♥♥♥♥ before she summons any (I played duo so i cast invisibility on my lvl 9 tank & damage dealer MC with smite, she sneaked past other enemies towards jeslyn, quickly smited and killed her before she could react). Not sure how this battle can be done w/ full party.

[atm]

Thanks all. Just for reference, I am not complaining per se, but am just looking for ideas how to take down swarms now that they are much nastier. I have made it past the Act 1 swarms by using quite a few buffs and just going nuts on them, and also kiting some of them in RTWP in the market square.
The new behavior makes it very hard to fight them in turn based, which is the opposite of what it was before the change. If you build for turn based as I do (e.g. lots of swift-action abilities), this will make the game much harder, since you want to be in turn based to use your abilities, but the swarms will just charge and smack you down right from the first turn, and there doesn't appear to be any actual defense against this. You can't see who they are targeting, the appear to aggro randomly, you don't know how far they can move and still attack, their attack appears to have no attack roll, it just auto-hits, and it will take off anywhere from a quarter to a half of a char's health in one round, depending on how many swarms stack on them. All before you can even move.
The most obvious strat appears to burn them hard, but again on unfair this will still take at least a couple to a few turns, and with essentially unavoidable damage they are putting out now, I am just dreading leper's smile. I guess I will have to invest in taking massive heals? I tend to play with minimal heals for the most part, which is probably another reason I am finding this hard to adjust to.

[Raikon]

I greesed that whole room, and she stayed down and out. CC I'd imagine is how most groups would get through the jeslyn room.

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by atm:

The new behavior makes it very hard to fight them in turn based, which is the opposite of what it was before the change.

I always played wotr in rtwp and imo it was the same.
Swarms were easy before the recent buff (I could literally walk over them and they would do no damage provided my character was fast enough - e.g. hasted or buffed with expeditious retreat) but became a pain in the ass now.

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by atm:

now, I am just dreading leper's smile

You are right to dread it.
I just finished it.
Fffffffffffuuuuu********.
I tried the same strategy as the last time (dragon polymorph) but compared to the last time (pretty easy) this time it was pure pain and suffering.
I spent about a hundred of health potions, pretty much most of my reserves that I've collected since the start.

Still, it worked in the end and idk how to do it differently.
A few pieces of advice regarding what to bring:
- your strongest attacker & tank (either a pet or smb like my CHA-stacked MC) and all the buffs
- bookworm's headband (immunity to gibber)
- delay poison spell (immunity to nauseated condition caused by swarms)
- dragon polymorph scrolls (gives you STR bonus, armor bonus and plenty of attacks that deal bludgeoning damage - i.e. 100% to swarms)
- Cape of Pest Control for untyped dr 5/- against swarm attacks (it does help a lot, can be bought at the camp)
- Amulet of Devouring from Act 1 (also helps not to die in each particular encounter)
- Ideally, a shaman/witch to precackle luck & fortune
- Bless spell (I forgot about those damn vrocks in the cave and their debuff, didn't have any bless prepared)

Currently, swarms never attack each particular member of your party more than 1 at a time. Therefore, soloing this is arguably much easier (you can still bring other party members for buffs, just keep them away from the fight), because otherwise all your party members will be swarmed and gibbered to death.
Killing 1 swarm takes your dragon a turn during which you also get damaged for 15-20 HP but get a bunch of temporary HP from Amulet of Devouring after the current swarm is dead. Then the next swarm approaches you, you kill the next swarm, etc.

In the end I duo-ed LS (polymorphed MC and my buffbot shaman) and it took me 1 additional rest to finish it (Initiailly - all the surface and the undead in the dungeon, after resting - all the swarms in the cave, vrocks, derakni and that giant spider thing).