Monster Swarms Design

[MisterCensor]

I just bought the game and I encountered this mechanic and it frustrates me...I think it's the only bad thing about this game so far... are there any fixes for this?

I understand we need to use other ways but any chance of it being changed in the near future?

[Revan]

early game they are a pain, but early-mid game they can be dealt with by getting communal delay poison, resist energy and just dropping an AOE elemental bomb on top of your own party.

there are two companions you get in the second chapter that are quite good at it.


As for tactics, you want a "tank" with high fort saves if you don't have delay poison, i personally just ran that encounter at level 3? 4? I had Valerie in defensive stance, something like 28 base AC (not as good as you can, i don't min-max much outside of my MC) with a singular delay poison from Linzi. then i used the damaging frost cantrips from my Magus MC to whittle them down while she flailed about with a torch.

[Doombringer]

Early game you get everburning torches and alchemist fire to deal with them.
Arcane casters have all sorts of options. Kineticists one shot them.
Can use entangle, web, etc. to slow them down.
DR and poison immunity can render a swarm harmless.

The only place you run into swarms early game is in Fangberry Cave, you can just not go in the room with the swarms (the quest objective is before them).


This game is based on pathfinder rules (google: pathfinder SRD), it isn't going to change.

[MisterCensor]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Early game you get everburning torches and alchemist fire to deal with them.
Arcane casters have all sorts of options. Kineticists one shot them.
Can use entangle, web, etc. to slow them down.
DR and poison immunity can render a swarm harmless.

The only place you run into swarms early game is in Fangberry Cave, you can just not go in the room with the swarms (the quest objective is before them).


This game is based on pathfinder rules (google: pathfinder SRD), it isn't going to change.

Alright I understand that, just seems counter productive that despite having those items you mentioned as I've read them in another thread, I couldn't seem to hit them.

The progression in this game (despite following abovementioned rules) is out of pace but if it's part of the experience fine.

Originally posted by Revan:

early game they are a pain, but early-mid game they can be dealt with by getting communal delay poison, resist energy and just dropping an AOE elemental bomb on top of your own party.

there are two companions you get in the second chapter that are quite good at it.


As for tactics, you want a "tank" with high fort saves if you don't have delay poison, i personally just ran that encounter at level 3? 4? I had Valerie in defensive stance, something like 28 base AC (not as good as you can, i don't min-max much outside of my MC) with a singular delay poison from Linzi. then i used the damaging frost cantrips from my Magus MC to whittle them down while she flailed about with a torch.

Thanks, it seems really a trend that players must not do this mission right away, if so, I think the level design is weak, which leads me to waste time save scumming. I wished it were improved, it shapes up to be a decent game. I'm just really flustered that this is just the first sidequest opened up by the game and you encounter this.

In my opinion, it's really just frustrating that I can't enjoy the roleplaying part when I'm off worrying too much about the mechanics. In any case I'll give it a rest for awhile.

[Swordman_Red]

Originally posted by MisterCensor:

I just bought the game and I encountered this mechanic and it frustrates me...I think it's the only bad thing about this game so far... are there any fixes for this?

I understand we need to use other ways but any chance of it being changed in the near future?

it frustrates me = it's bad gamedesign = fix it. Modern gamers, ladies and gents.
By the way, if you dont wanna worry too much about game mechanics i can recommend look up a visual novel jenre, might be your cup of tea.

[Drake]

The quest isn't badly designed, it's perfectly designed for what it's for. It's a quest reading check. The guy tells you to use the bombs to kill them, gives you the torches, tells you to use aoe and even sells them to you.
Plus it's a secondary quest.

The only thing they can do, more than that, is to use those mobile game invasive tutorials that prevent players to think by locking the screen and making a single button active to hold you hand to click on the right button (I hate those, pretty much why I don't play mobile games, the tutorial always put me off).

The game is just assuming you can read and understand what you are reading.

The primary function of a game is to make people's brains work, it's training, fun training, but training nonetheless, never forget that, people forget that too much these days. Entertainment only comes second.

[Swordman_Red]

Originally posted by Sajah:

The game is just assuming you can read and understand what you are reading.

Pretty bold assumption nowaday, it seems.

[ppaladin123]

There are plenty of things that have frustrated players of 3.5e/Pathfinder over the years but I don't think the swarm mechanic has ever been one of them. In fact, it makes for a more interesting encounter than "pile of HP that just bites you every round" or "pile of HP that just bites you every round and you need four or five different buff spells with different bonus types to stack your attack bonus so you can hit it."

[Aria Athena]

If anyone says they like swarms I'm willing to bet they are lying. It's not badly designed. The problem with swarms in general is that they operate under very different rules than everything else. Even high level parties that can face anything just fine may start looking in their pockets for Alchemist's Fire if they come across swarms.


To make your life easy, Swarms can be caught in Webs and they will be stuck forever since their Mobility is low.

[Adeptus Stark]

Had to start another thread on swarms...

They aren't changing them, you are given equipment to kill them, if you can't beat them now, come back later like a ton of other encounters.

/end thread

[Mortis]

As a druid you can summon swarms yourself. You will love them!

[Dixon Sider]

Il never understand why people would request a game to become generic

[jamennej]

Can the Mandragora swarms be stuck in Web as well? Since those are really the only type that gives me nightmares...

[dr.rosenrosen]

Originally posted by Dixon Sider:

Il never understand why people would request a game to become generic

Heh. I think I kept playing this game over and over even when it was full of bugs precisely because it was almost unapologetically "generic". It tried to follow pnp and standard tropes based on a well established fantasy system while still excercising some latitiude. I don't play the DOS games for XCOM stuff and I don't play this for swarm mechanics or to try and make it Tolkien meets Souls.

But then again I am also a heretic and was never a fan of Planescape because its mechanics just sucked when you weren't getting into the "brilliant" story and its wannabe succesors like Numenera also sucked. So I am not agnostic to mechanics. I just don't think they are the main reason why most fans of fantasy genre games enjoy them...at least all the dice rolling nerds I know anyways.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by jamennej:

Can the Mandragora swarms be stuck in Web as well? Since those are really the only type that gives me nightmares...

Yes they can. Even the spider swarms can, even though spiders are immune to web.

[MisterCensor]

Originally posted by Sajah:

The quest isn't badly designed, it's perfectly designed for what it's for. It's a quest reading check. The guy tells you to use the bombs to kill them, gives you the torches, tells you to use aoe and even sells them to you.
Plus it's a secondary quest.

The only thing they can do, more than that, is to use those mobile game invasive tutorials that prevent players to think by locking the screen and making a single button active to hold you hand to click on the right button (I hate those, pretty much why I don't play mobile games, the tutorial always put me off).

The game is just assuming you can read and understand what you are reading.

The primary function of a game is to make people's brains work, it's training, fun training, but training nonetheless, never forget that, people forget that too much these days. Entertainment only comes second.

Look I know the NPC gave me the stuff for the mission but it's hardly even enough to defeat the swarm, I mean I killed the big spiders just fine and it seemed unbalanced because of precisely that reason... I was frustrated enough to post this as an observation.

Stop assuming players like me didn't read the damned text. I love the games text compared to games like pillars of eternity this one actually has better context, just except this mechanic, so far it's the only real pain in the game I've experienced.