T…do webs entangle creatures who try to move through them after they are created? The description seems quite unclear. For that matter, do they even work on swarms at all?
There has been a lot of discussion about Swarm VS Web and the nature of a Swarm..
Try
here,
here, and officially,
here.
It seems to me that the debate points focus on the very small size of the individual things that make up the swarm, with the idea that most would simply miss the Web strands.
Looking at official Size for a Shredstorm, the creature description says the individual shuriken disks are 4 inches in diameter and weigh 2 ounces. Therefore they
officially are Size Fine, which goes up to 6 inches and 2 ounces, and matches the Creature Type in the description.
Some other characteristics come out at me from
the description of Swarm:
- “creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together”
- “A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures”
- “it can squeeze through any space large enough to contain one of its component creatures”
- ”Unlike other creatures with a 10-foot space, a swarm is shapeable. It can occupy any four contiguous squares”
So here’s how this all seems to me:
The argument that the constituent parts of a Swarm are too small to be caught by the strands of a Web does not hold up, because the whole swarm is a big clump of 10,000 creatures, “closely packed together” and some of them are going to touch a strand. Even though Fine creatures might be able to flow through the gaps between theoretical strands in general, this isn’t just an issue of the size of the gap between strands; the problem is that these particular strands are Magically sticky.
The Escape Artist check for a Shredstorm could be a way to handle the Web vs. its ability to flow through things. It gets +6 DEX, and you could assign it max Skill Points into Escape Artist for its 10HD, which is +13, so its Escape Artist check would be +19 vs the DC25. It would have a 75% chance of moving through the Web in any round.
You can also decide to give a Swarm an advantage over a Web even when it is partially stuck, based on its shapeability, to represent the idea that some of the individual creatures should be able to flow through the spaces in the Web. In theory the Swarm could stretch 4 squares forward across the Web in the first round of contact with the spell, extending to the limit of its shape, even if it gets stuck at that point. To move further it has to make Saves. However, if that 40 feet carries the Swarm into melee range of a creature, whether the creature is beyond the web or inside it, the creature might be able to be attacked by the Swarm in that round.
So you can have sort of have it both ways:
The Shredstorm (or any Swarm) may get stuck in the Web by missing its DC20 Reflex Save, but it still might reach an enemy no more than 40 beyond its entry point into the Web and attack in that same round. Then to move further, it would have to make a DC25 Escape Artist roll, giving an intelligent enemy beyond the Web the opportunity to flee.
Just an idea! – IMHO, MM
