We played the first half of HP2-03 on Roll20 tonight and a few questions came up regarding Scene 3...

What is the attack speed of the Spawn of Tzizhet? It is listed as 0. Does that mean it does an automatic attack when it moves (eg speed 2 or 3 depending if it wants to provoke)? If that's how it works, it dishes out an insane amount of damage.

Does the damage bypass natural AR? Given that it doesn't specify "worn", I assume so. However, how/why would Lash and Sting damage bypass natural AR? As a murder of tiny critters, they could easily get under worn armor (but that's impossible for natural armor).

Don't have mod handy, but if the Spawn is a swarm/murder than yes you take damage if you share a square with it in it's turn.

That seems insane. That's likely 1d10+4 damage bypassing all (or at least worn) AR every 2 ticks to likely 4 party members (2 per swarm since they can "deform" to any contiguous 4 squares).

Looking at the swarm characteristics, it says Natural AR does apply to the damage. However, the Spawn of Tzizhet just says "bypass AR" (but doesn't seem to have a traits that would grant this). Is it supposed to be "bypass worn AR" or are the Spawn supposed to bypass all AR?

Yeah that fight sucked\sucks. I personally would assume natural AR helps. And I wouldn't double the swarms up...that is to say the PCs should only be eating the damage once per action. Unless the PCs are having an easy time of it. Not impossible with area effects and bludgeoning sweeping strikes.

Scare the PCs....but you hopefully want them to survive for more fun in later rounds.

My character had Castigate (which, despite what everyone thinks, targets animals and mindless vermin just fine) and Elemental Bolt, so the fight wasn't too bad. Without an AOE, however, it becomes MUCH harder

Just to be clear this was not the last fight at the end with boss monster right? Because if it was I have questions about that.

Just to clarify, I was running it with the damage occurring every 4 ticks, not 2. Steve is correct, however, the module does not specify an attack speed (that I could find) or state that NAR applies to the damage.

Hello,

Natural Armor does not protect (i.e. apply) against these creatures attacks.

Thanks for the clarification.

Out of curiosity, what is the attack supposed to be that it bypasses NAR?

If NAR does not apply, I'd suggest changing the name of the attack. "Lash and Sting" sounds like a typical insect swarm attack (where NAR would definitely logically apply).

It doesn't specifically state it in this combat, but there is a related enemy who deals Acid damage (and it states there that it bypasses all AR), so that may be the case.