Help with Spider Swarm...

[HTakara]

So how do I kill spider swarms? trying to complete that quest to get the berries, but the spider swarms are immune to damage, don't have any casters in my team yet, so I tried using the torches to smack them with it, but it only does 1 damage..... am I just SOL until I get a castor to kill them with magic?

[SIlverblade-T-E]

while I do agree they should have warned you right off....swarms of vermin ARE scary as hell

like, what's scarier a T Rex or the velicoraptors?
In RL a T rex would be easy to kill, seriously, bunch of guys with hunting rifles never rmind belt fed machine guns or worse, would slaughter it (you all do realize how destruvtice mdoern weapon actually are, hm?)
but PACKS of velicoraptors?! sod that!, RUN!!
NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT!

imagine warms of thousands of spiders, centipedes etc mindlessly chasing you
short of fire bombs NOTHING is going to stop them, that is pants wettingly scary!!!

[Eboreus]

Originally posted by neosun:

The Priest himself can kill them easy and everyone has the priest or the evil udead girl.

I don't, neither nor.

[HTakara]

Originally posted by Eboreus:

Originally posted by neosun:

The Priest himself can kill them easy and everyone has the priest or the evil udead girl.

I don't, neither nor.

yeah you gotta be a ♥♥♥♥ to get those two to join you in the beginning.

[Fflarn]

Originally posted by dodger6118:

Acid splash, burning hands, ray of frost, jolt, etc. Guys, this isn't that hard. Try to adjust your tactics to the enemy in front of you.

Again, I tried this several times using multiple burning hands spells and a handful of acid/fire flasks. It's not as simple as being prepared for the swarms, you need way, way more damage than would be expected from the source material (i.e. Pathfinder).

One of the posters on here, Aero, regularly defends this encounter citing alchemical items as the solution. And technically, not wrong. But, as he has said multiple times, it took him 12 flasks to clear. That is more damage dice than a die capped fireball produces (from a level 10+ wizard) to clear what should be CR 1/2 swarms. If you get unlucky on misses, low damage rolls, and successful saves, it could take substantially more flasks than this even.

There are also bugs/left out mechanics that contribute to the issue, such as swarms not taking the 50% extra damage from AoE abilities, but overall it's probably more of an issue that the swarms likely just have too many HP to be effectively killed with the spell resources of a low level party

[Aero]

Originally posted by Fflarn:

Again, I tried this several times using multiple burning hands spells and a handful of acid/fire flasks. It's not as simple as being prepared for the swarms, you need way, way more damage than would be expected from the source material (i.e. Pathfinder).

One of the posters on here, Aero, regularly defends this encounter citing alchemical items as the solution. And technically, not wrong. But, as he has said multiple times, it took him 12 flasks to clear. That is more damage dice than a die capped fireball produces (from a level 10+ wizard) to clear what should be CR 1/2 swarms. If you get unlucky on misses, low damage rolls, and successful saves, it could take substantially more flasks than this even.

There are also bugs/left out mechanics that contribute to the issue, such as swarms not taking the 50% extra damage from AoE abilities, but overall it's probably more of an issue that the swarms likely just have too many HP to be effectively killed with the spell resources of a low level party

It's actually not more dice than a fireball because any flask that misses only does 1 damage. And I do think that the encounter has some slight issues; the game should explain swarms to you when you take the quest and should appropriately apply 1.5x damage to the swarm.

I just don't think that it's current form is crazy hard either. It's extremely doable.

[Fflarn]

Originally posted by Aero:

Originally posted by Fflarn:

Again, I tried this several times using multiple burning hands spells and a handful of acid/fire flasks. It's not as simple as being prepared for the swarms, you need way, way more damage than would be expected from the source material (i.e. Pathfinder).

One of the posters on here, Aero, regularly defends this encounter citing alchemical items as the solution. And technically, not wrong. But, as he has said multiple times, it took him 12 flasks to clear. That is more damage dice than a die capped fireball produces (from a level 10+ wizard) to clear what should be CR 1/2 swarms. If you get unlucky on misses, low damage rolls, and successful saves, it could take substantially more flasks than this even.

There are also bugs/left out mechanics that contribute to the issue, such as swarms not taking the 50% extra damage from AoE abilities, but overall it's probably more of an issue that the swarms likely just have too many HP to be effectively killed with the spell resources of a low level party

It's actually not more dice than a fireball because any flask that misses only does 1 damage. And I do think that the encounter has some slight issues; the game should explain swarms to you when you take the quest and should appropriately apply 1.5x damage to the swarm.

I just don't think that it's current form is crazy hard either. It's extremely doable.

It is doable, but only through a ludicrous method. The stats on the swarms are also questionable. The spider swarm in the monster manual has a 17 touch AC and a +3 reflex. The in game version has a. 21 touch AC and a +8 reflex save. So even if you have the higher end of ranged attack bonus and spell DC saves, you have about a 25% to hit if you have precise shot, and the swarms have a 60% chance to save. If your less min-maxed it only gets worse.

I just ran a test on the encounter. First burning hands, swarms failed saves, both took 4 damage. Alchemists fire hit both for 1 damage. Second burning hands spell one save one fail, 3 and 6 damage respectively, one swarm dies. One lives, third swarm spawns. The living swarm has taken 8 damage, which means the swarm has between 9 and 11 hit points.

I don't doubt that you cleared this with 12 flasks, but I am curious as to the details. I believe you had said you spread them evenly across the party, so 3 each. Since few companions have great ranged attack or precise shot, statistically you probably should have missed all attacks. Since the third swarm doesn't appear until at least one swarm dies, it should have taken 9-11 flasks to kill. Leaving 1-3 for the third swarm, not nearly enough. So either you used other substantial resources aside from flasks, or your experience is so statistically unlikely as to be unusable as a baseline.

I've come across more oddities. When hit with alchemical fire splash shows damage: 1 (fire vulnerability) but when hit with burning hands it did not say that. I also put Amiri in the middle of the swarm while raging as that brings her touch AC down to 10 and threw the flasks at her to see if, since they share the same space, the swarm would take the same damage. Oddly, the flasks hit, she rolled a save, but no damage was rolled. The swarms took 1 damage. I want to test this more after work.

[HTakara]

I just feel bad for people who didn't loot everything in the opening part of the game to make the money necessary to clear this stupid sidequest

[Aero]

@Fflarn. There were only every 2 spider swarms for me, not 3. I'm playing on challenging if that makes a difference.

[ruppe27]

I bought some firebombs from the hermit at the trading post earlier and tried to use those, it took 5 bombs to took them down.

[Fflarn]

@Aero. Interesting. I'm also on challenging. What happens for me is that once the first spider swarm dies I geta second large spider spawn by the upper left wall, and another swarm spawn from the right wall right by the entrance (which is a nasty surprise as it basically immediately puts your backline in a swarm). I've seen other people mention the extra spawns. Makes me wonder if the spawns are a bug, no spawns are a bug, or if there is some other factor which determines this.

[HTakara]

Originally posted by ruppe27:

I bought some firebombs from the hermit at the trading post earlier and tried to use those, it took 5 bombs to took them down.

that's virtually impossible, it does 1d4 damage with a 25% chance of hitting, and you have to kill 3 swarms.

[Slifar]

Oddly enough the spider swarms only gave me problems until I resigned myself to just using all my spell resources to nuke them. Few casts of Burning Hands from my magus took care of them pretty nicely. Now, I am playing on what I call "Pathfinder Rules," which is basically Difficult with the enemy scaling set to Normal (So the enemy gets full crits and people can die, among other things)

That said this encounter DID make me ensure that at least one other person in the party could cast Burning Hands, haha

tl;dr: Use Burning Hands on those spiders. It is the best option I'm aware of.

For those not initiated in the tabletop game, swarms take MUCH less damage from most weapons, but take an extra 50% damage from AoE spells and effects that dont have limits on the number of creatures they can effect. Pretty sure some loading screen hints might imply this, but I dont think the game outright tells you since swarm rules Since alchemist's fire and such do most of their damage to a single creature on a direct hit, those might not work very well. Your best bet for those spiders is honestly probably just Burning Hands from a properly statted caster of some sort. The magus in question that I used was an Eldritch Scion with a gold dragon bloodline around level 2-3 at the time of the encounter, so they did get an extra point of damage for every die rolled. Two or three casts was enough to wipe the swarms.

Another point: It is ENTIRELY OKAY and often ADVENTAGEOUS to run away from fights that aren't going your way. Prepared casters that can get level 9 spells are considered the strongest classes in Pathfinder because of their ability to change what spells they can cast after every single rest (Or before the rest in the case of games like this). This makes them insanely versatile while still packing all the firepower level 9 spells give you. Druids and Clerics have access to their full spell list for every level they can cast, and Wizards can add spells to their spellbook with scrolls they find.

So yeah, in cases like this for example, it's really effective to run away, prepare the spells you need, and come back better prepared.

[HTakara]

Originally posted by Slifar:

Oddly enough the spider swarms only gave me problems until I resigned myself to just using all my spell resources to nuke them. Few casts of Burning Hands from my magus took care of them pretty nicely. Now, I am playing on what I call "Pathfinder Rules," which is basically Difficult with the enemy scaling set to Normal (So the enemy gets full crits and people can die, among other things)

That said this encounter DID make me ensure that at least one other person in the party could cast Burning Hands, haha

tl;dr: Use Burning Hands on those spiders. It is the best option I'm aware of.

For those not initiated in the tabletop game, swarms take MUCH less damage from most weapons, but take an extra 50% damage from AoE spells and effects that dont have limits on the number of creatures they can effect. Pretty sure some loading screen hints might imply this, but I dont think the game outright tells you since swarm rules Since alchemist's fire and such do most of their damage to a single creature on a direct hit, those might not work very well. Your best bet for those spiders is honestly probably just Burning Hands from a properly statted caster of some sort. The magus in question that I used was an Eldritch Scion with a gold dragon bloodline around level 2-3 at the time of the encounter, so they did get an extra point of damage for every die rolled. Two or three casts was enough to wipe the swarms.

Another point: It is ENTIRELY OKAY and often ADVENTAGEOUS to run away from fights that aren't going your way. Prepared casters that can get level 9 spells are considered the strongest classes in Pathfinder because of their ability to change what spells they can cast after every single rest (Or before the rest in the case of games like this). This makes them insanely versatile while still packing all the firepower level 9 spells give you. Druids and Clerics have access to their full spell list for every level they can cast, and Wizards can add spells to their spellbook with scrolls they find.

So yeah, in cases like this for example, it's really effective to run away, prepare the spells you need, and come back better prepared.

you can't run once the fight starts btw, you have to load from a save file and come back later. Also, tbh its pointless to come back later, as the quest rewards are crap if you're higher level, so it's only worth completing if you're a completionist. the XP and Gold is worth it for when you're starting out, but useless otherwise.

[Fflarn]

Originally posted by Slifar:

Oddly enough the spider swarms only gave me problems until I resigned myself to just using all my spell resources to nuke them. Few casts of Burning Hands from my magus took care of them pretty nicely. Now, I am playing on what I call "Pathfinder Rules," which is basically Difficult with the enemy scaling set to Normal (So the enemy gets full crits and people can die, among other things)

That said this encounter DID make me ensure that at least one other person in the party could cast Burning Hands, haha

tl;dr: Use Burning Hands on those spiders. It is the best option I'm aware of.

For those not initiated in the tabletop game, swarms take MUCH less damage from most weapons, but take an extra 50% damage from AoE spells and effects that dont have limits on the number of creatures they can effect. Pretty sure some loading screen hints might imply this, but I dont think the game outright tells you since swarm rules Since alchemist's fire and such do most of their damage to a single creature on a direct hit, those might not work very well. Your best bet for those spiders is honestly probably just Burning Hands from a properly statted caster of some sort. The magus in question that I used was an Eldritch Scion with a gold dragon bloodline around level 2-3 at the time of the encounter, so they did get an extra point of damage for every die rolled. Two or three casts was enough to wipe the swarms.

Another point: It is ENTIRELY OKAY and often ADVENTAGEOUS to run away from fights that aren't going your way. Prepared casters that can get level 9 spells are considered the strongest classes in Pathfinder because of their ability to change what spells they can cast after every single rest (Or before the rest in the case of games like this). This makes them insanely versatile while still packing all the firepower level 9 spells give you. Druids and Clerics have access to their full spell list for every level they can cast, and Wizards can add spells to their spellbook with scrolls they find.

So yeah, in cases like this for example, it's really effective to run away, prepare the spells you need, and come back better prepared.

Unless they fixed it in a patch, swarms were not taking the extra 50% damage from AoE spells

[Iron]

I beat them by pressing Alt F4.

But seriously this is very disapointing that such a stupid thing made it out of testing so early in the game, I am hesitant to even play anymore if this is what the next 50 hours will be like.