Armor Class
12
Hit Points
24
(7d8 - 7)
Speed
10 ft., fly 50 ft.
STR
6
(-2)
DEX
14
(+2)
CON
8
(-1)
INT
3
(-4)
WIS
12
(+1)
CHA
6
(-2)
Skills
Perception +5
Damage Resistances
Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing
Condition Immunities
Charmed, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Restrained, Stunned
Senses
Passive Perception 15
Languages
--
Challenge
1/4 (50 XP)
Proficiency Bonus
+2
Swarm. The swarm can occupy another creature's space and vice versa, and the swarm can move through any opening large enough for a Tiny raven. The swarm can't regain hit points or gain temporary hit points.
Actions
Beaks. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target in the swarm's space. Hit: 7 (2d6) piercing damage, or 3 (1d6) piercing damage if the swarm has half of its hit points or fewer.
I want to conjure animals these when fighting a beholder. Immune to lots of status effects, resistant to bites, flies. "MY EYES, MY EYYYYYYES!"
Is it wrong that It bugs me that it's not listed as an Unkindness of Ravens?
This may be a new favorite summon.
That's just awesome. They can lift ninety pounds? My halfling ranger will learn conjure animals at 9th level, buy a 3 lb net, and pull a James and the Giant Peach.
depending on your DM's ruling you might not be able to summon swarms as it would be summoning ~24 cr 0 creatures
"Conjure Animals" summons 8 creatures of CR 1/4. "Swarm of Ravens" is explicitly listed as a CR 1/4 creature. So, it summons 8 swarms of Ravens, each of which has 24 hitpoints and each of which does 2d6 damage, and each of which can occupy the same square as an enemy.
There is no way that a player party would be able to abuse this.
14th level Wizard with Conjuration focus, "any creature that you summon or create with a conjuration spell has 30 temporary hit points." So rationally now the swarm of Ravens has 54 hit points. Instead, for some game-breaking fun, how about now each is a swarm of 24 ravens with 31 hit points each, or 744 hp per swarm? Summon 8 of them with a level 3 spell, why not? Could be useful for a DM looking to create a "you must run away, you can't possibly win" type of NPC fight scenario. The swarms don't do much damage, but are basically unstoppable, and a lv14 or higher wizard can cast lv3 conjure animals all day. Just be careful not to use it in a campaign where there's a Wizard PC that has the conjuration focus...
"The swarm can't regain hit points or gain temporary hit points."
doesn't work unfortunately 😂
swarms can't be summoned by conjure animals
could you wildshape into a swarm?
I would say no, unless there's a subclass or something that specifically allows it. Per the Wild Shape feature (emphasis mine):
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your action to magically assume the shape of a beast that you have seen before.
However, Swarm of Ravens is described in the statblock as "Medium swarm of Tiny beasts, unaligned." The plural there indicates to me that you are not able to wild shape into a swarm if the ability in question allows you to change into a single beast. The key here is that the swarm is not described as a Beast, but rather a swarm of beasts.
One might argue that the swarm is listed in D&D Beyond under the "Beast" category, and thus okay to use, but I'd be inclined to base any ruling on the text from the book, rather than how this site chooses to categorize the statblock for search purposes. In my opinion you wouldn't be able to wild shape into a swarm by RAW, and it doesn't make much sense to me in terms of RAI or lore, either. If they saw a flock of ravens hanging out somewhere, your druid probably wouldn't be thinking, "Aha! More than one bird in the same place? Surely they are one creature, I should try transforming into a cloud of birds."
Sorry for the wordy response but I want to make sure my reasoning is clear. As always DM fiat trumps everything else, so if they think it's fine, then you're golden.
This monster makes for a surprisingly specific situation.
Why would this creatures “beaks” action specify that it has a reach of 5 feet if the target specifies it still must attack a target in the swarms space?
I'd like to use this as a Ranger pet, but the inability to regain hitpoints would be an obvious downside. I have an idea that I think most GM's would be cool with though; during a long rest, your swarm calls in more ravens to return to its full size. If all your Ravens die during a day, you're SOL, but it gives you a chance to keep them topped up over time at least.
“Can’t gain temporary hit points”
For players.
DM laughs maniacally in Rule 0
Groups of ravens are also referred to as conspiracies.
but yes, it should have the proper terminology
Seems like a conspiracy to me...
Edit: Damn, beat me to it. ; )
That might be "or" not "and".
Just confirming, these guys are resistant to magical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning as well?
Could be best to file away swarms under "immune to sneak attack" because though it's generally given that any creature can be sneak attacked in 5e, even ghosts and that's just how rogues do, I still wouldn't want rogues beyond level 5 or so to be able to pull off the sweetest trick shots and skewer 10 ravens on an arrow or thrown knife.
I also usually rule swarms as taking x2 damage from AoE attacks, and swarm on swarm combat ignores the damage resistance, because a swarm could logically damage another swarm just fine.
Good catch, I think this one is supposed to be able to use that 5 ft because other swarms I've seen say 0 ft and flying ravens could be seen as entering the space to attack then leaving it. Depending on how you interpret "Swarm" it could also mean that raven swarms can gang up on people better than other swarms, because many people interpret it to mean a swarm can occupy ONE other creature's space, meaning you can only have 1 swarm in a creatures space (or two swarms in an otherwise empty space).