Control Insects & Arachnids Questions

[Glistam]

In my current campaign I'm trying to use Lady Hive from Century Station. The issue I'm running into is figuring out how to use the "swarms" of insects she can summon. The monster/giant insects are pretty straightforward, but the "swarms" are causing me some grief.

There's 5 general types of swarms: blinding, itching, biting, stinging, and arachnids. Based on the wording of the first two types (blinding and itching), it seems as if the damages from the biting, stinging, and arachnid swarms are just automatic. But there's no guidance given on how large the swarms are, nor on how an opponent fights or resists the swarm. H.P., A.R., and attack per melee values are given for individual insects but there's no further guidance on how to translate those stats into a swarm. If the character summons 5D4x10 poisonous spiders, how many swarms can be made when it takes "a group of 10-40" to inflict 2D6x10 damage per melee? Is it as simple as breaking them up into groups of 10?

I'm finding myself making a lot of judgement calls here and I wondered if anyone else has ever looked at this power and found a reasonable way to make the swarms work for them?

[zerombr]

I've never really thought about it!

Hmmm, okay why don't we simplify? Have it so when she summons a swarm, we eliminate the actual numbers, and just have that swarm as (effectively) a single target that deals the base 2D6X10 (which is actually pretty dang high!) and throw out everything else?

[dreicunan]

I concur with zerombr. Otherwise it becomes a nightmare to keep track of everything. I'd make it so that the swarm size bands determine damage, and apart from that the numbers only determine the HP of the swarm (kind of like how mobs worked in Destiny of an Emperor on the NES).

[Stone Gargoyle]

I have always treated it as one giant swarm being controlled, not multiple swarms. You control 10-40 insects. I don't see the point of multiple swarms and don't know why the power was described as such. You have to use an action to direct the swarm anyway, correct?