What Use is Writhing Tide?

[TaiLiu]

Hovering is an ability, not a fixed condition. You are not forced to hover.

Oh, I see. "As a bonus action, you gain a flying speed of 10 feet and can hover." I misread that part. That solves one of my concerns about Writhing Tide.

The third bullet. Assuming you *are* starting near enough to worry about it, 5ft is regularly all you need to be out of range of a foe. you can swarm 5ft step, walk away 25 ft(rover), then fly up 5ft (diagonal). Even starting right next to a foe you already made it difficult to reach you and because it's not concentration you can mix in stuff like web, spike growth, or whatnot.

Most people want to use it to fly way up but skirting the ground allows you the option to drop and utilize your full movement and then you can fly up if needed. Bonus points if you use the climb speed to out crouching Dragon the monk.

Right. I'm just confused cuz you mentioned two options, so I'm not sure what the third is.

The tactical benefit of being 5 feet in the air are also pretty limited. I guess you could hover over something like an entangle spell. But you're definitely within range of someone stabbing you with a sharp stick.

Gathered Swarm only triggers when you hit a creature with an attack. So unless you're hitting yourself as you fly around, or carrying around the proverbial bag of rats to punch, you're not going to be able to use that extra 5' of movement while exploring.

Yeah. It does feel kinda weird that your swarm can't help you out outside of combat, though.

I don't think you - or possibly your DM? - are thinking about obstacles in the right way.

The idea is not for the DM to throw an impassable chasm between the party and the critical path, sit back, and rub their hands in glee at the players' frustration. Rather, the goal is to have multiple routes to a given objective, at least a few of which reward the party for using their unique features. So yes, it's likely your wide chasm will have a long bridge on it - but that bridge may contain patrols and checkpoints and sightlines that the scout will need to bypass with meaningful consequences if they fail. Or the Swarmkeeper can fly parallel to the bridge, or even under it, and not need to make such checks at all. And while there can be additional different paths to get there, those would have challenges of their own, including finding them in the first place.

One of the best things a player can hear is "because you used {ability}, you don't even need to make a check." It's a very easy way to make their build choices matter, and you don't have to make a bunch of extra content, because "get across the chasm" was something you already planned for.

Right. No one's rubbing their hands in glee at my games, unless done in jest.

The guarded bridge example is good, though I've never experienced one in-game where combat wasn't inevitable. I'm actually not sure what kinda bridge would have patrols and stuff—unless it was so long that Writhing Tide would expire before the Ranger could cross it.

Even if the bridge was under 200 feet long—which is super short, about eighty steps or so—I'm also not sure the Ranger would be able to bypass the check to cross the bridge. A scout moving across the bridge would need to roll Stealth. So would the Ranger under the bridge. I'd grant Advantage for sure. But I'm not sure I would allow an auto-success.

Furthermore, there's the problem of getting everyone else across the chasm. If someone is spotted, we're all fighting. I don't really consider that bypassing the obstacle.