The thing about a chase on horseback through a forest is that it is inherently hazardous. Low lying branches, fallen timber, sudden streams, animal burrow holes. All have the chance to slow or stop both the pursuers or pursued. A lot of people have injured or died in riding accidents (there's a reason those cute caps equestrians wear are really helmets in disguise.)
On the other hand, even if the fleeing subject opens up the distance, instead of a pel-mel chase, you now have tracking exercise. A blind hamster could follow the signs left behind by a thousand pound shod horse through the woods UNLESS the quarry tries some trick or other to remove
Yeah, I thought about that as well as the hazards of maneuvering in a forest but the ranger and monk made some skill challenges that helped a lot to the narrative to guide them through. I did think about the open road approach as well, and it would have worked as the blights would just have a terminus line the players needed to cross for the monsters to give up the chase.
Kinda going off topic, but if you have the blights published as homebrew or pulled them from a third party source, I'd be interested in seeing the homebrew or see the book you got them from. I think blights are interesting, but would like to grow out their ecology a bit more.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Kinda going off topic, but if you have the blights published as homebrew or pulled them from a third party source, I'd be interested in seeing the homebrew or see the book you got them from. I think blights are interesting, but would like to grow out their ecology a bit more.
It is a homebrew I created here but have not published it. I need to do a little clean-up for publishing but I will. Honestly it just a mesh of Swarm features with twig blights with an additional Thorn range attack, but I will let you know once it goes up.
Cool, I'm wondering whether you scaled the damage to your estimate of your parties capacity. Comparing your Twig Blights to the swarm of insectslinked to the MM from the DMG's chase hazards, the insects have twice as much damage dice, and I'd expect Twig Blights to have a bit more sting (or I guess, stab) them than regular insects, though the insect swarm could be lethal to a low level arcane caster so the scaling makes sense given your after action report, the blight's did the job. I like the idea though, good homebrew inspiration.
Not really for the "field" but I'm wondering whether the small humanoid "door way" rule for yours and the insects is really best or should be smaller. Back in the 70s there were all sorts of "ecological horror" movies about killer bees etc, and they needed far less space than a Halfling sized doorway to make entry. I mean they can exit and assemble from their hives from smaller apertures in a an action turn. So if you like these little nasties, I'd encourage you to scale up their viciousness as your party develops the capacity to exterminate - I mean contend - with them, if you wanted your campaigns BBEG to actually be the littlest things.
Cool, I'm wondering whether you scaled the damage to your estimate of your parties capacity. Comparing your Twig Blights to the swarm of insectslinked to the MM from the DMG's chase hazards, the insects have twice as much damage dice, and I'd expect Twig Blights to have a bit more sting (or I guess, stab) them than regular insects, though the insect swarm could be lethal to a low level arcane caster so the scaling makes sense given your after action report, the blight's did the job. I like the idea though, good homebrew inspiration.
Not really for the "field" but I'm wondering whether the small humanoid "door way" rule for yours and the insects is really best or should be smaller. Back in the 70s there were all sorts of "ecological horror" movies about killer bees etc, and they needed far less space than a Halfling sized doorway to make entry. I mean they can exit and assemble from their hives from smaller apertures in a an action turn. So if you like these little nasties, I'd encourage you to scale up their viciousness as your party develops the capacity to exterminate - I mean contend - with them, if you wanted your campaigns BBEG to actually be the littlest things.
It's always good to have feedback so I appreciate it. To be honest I used the Rat/Swarm Of Rats as a template for my design taking how a singular rat damage is shown to a swarm. Though I see your point where a 2d4 while is double what a Twig normally would do as the damage does seem inadequate especially compared to the insect swarm. Though when you look at Rat/Bat Swarms you'll see the damage is closer in comparison to what I used with the TB and since bat and rat are larger in size, though still considered tiny, there would be less of them in volume to a swarm. Still, I could see going 3d4 vs the 2d4 for damage but I think higher may be too much, but keep in mind that there is the range attack, again small in damage, it still within range of a base TB claw attack.
Plus as a reference, I used Ghosts of Saltmarsh Skeletal Swarm since this deals with a medium base creature and where I pulled the swarm text from.
Deafening Clatter. Creatures are deafened while in the swarm’s space.
Swarm. The swarm can occupy another creature’s space and vice versa, and the swarm can move through any opening large enough for a Small humanoid. The swarm can’t regain hit points or gain temporary hit points.
Actions
Slash. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 0 ft., one target in the swarm’s space. Hit:11 (2d8 + 2) slashing damage, or 6 (1d8 + 2) slashing damage if the swarm has half of its hit points or fewer.
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Yeah, I thought about that as well as the hazards of maneuvering in a forest but the ranger and monk made some skill challenges that helped a lot to the narrative to guide them through. I did think about the open road approach as well, and it would have worked as the blights would just have a terminus line the players needed to cross for the monsters to give up the chase.
Kinda going off topic, but if you have the blights published as homebrew or pulled them from a third party source, I'd be interested in seeing the homebrew or see the book you got them from. I think blights are interesting, but would like to grow out their ecology a bit more.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It is a homebrew I created here but have not published it. I need to do a little clean-up for publishing but I will. Honestly it just a mesh of Swarm features with twig blights with an additional Thorn range attack, but I will let you know once it goes up.
update:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/1321710-swarm-of-twig-blights
This is the first homebrew I really focused on let alone published.
Cool, I'm wondering whether you scaled the damage to your estimate of your parties capacity. Comparing your Twig Blights to the swarm of insects linked to the MM from the DMG's chase hazards, the insects have twice as much damage dice, and I'd expect Twig Blights to have a bit more sting (or I guess, stab) them than regular insects, though the insect swarm could be lethal to a low level arcane caster so the scaling makes sense given your after action report, the blight's did the job. I like the idea though, good homebrew inspiration.
Not really for the "field" but I'm wondering whether the small humanoid "door way" rule for yours and the insects is really best or should be smaller. Back in the 70s there were all sorts of "ecological horror" movies about killer bees etc, and they needed far less space than a Halfling sized doorway to make entry. I mean they can exit and assemble from their hives from smaller apertures in a an action turn. So if you like these little nasties, I'd encourage you to scale up their viciousness as your party develops the capacity to exterminate - I mean contend - with them, if you wanted your campaigns BBEG to actually be the littlest things.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It's always good to have feedback so I appreciate it. To be honest I used the Rat/Swarm Of Rats as a template for my design taking how a singular rat damage is shown to a swarm. Though I see your point where a 2d4 while is double what a Twig normally would do as the damage does seem inadequate especially compared to the insect swarm. Though when you look at Rat/Bat Swarms you'll see the damage is closer in comparison to what I used with the TB and since bat and rat are larger in size, though still considered tiny, there would be less of them in volume to a swarm. Still, I could see going 3d4 vs the 2d4 for damage but I think higher may be too much, but keep in mind that there is the range attack, again small in damage, it still within range of a base TB claw attack.
Plus as a reference, I used Ghosts of Saltmarsh Skeletal Swarm since this deals with a medium base creature and where I pulled the swarm text from.