Hiveminds

[faceroll]

Am I reading the BoVD rules properly on Hiveminds? A hivemind of 10,000 fine flying creatures has got a sorcerer level of like 170 or 180?

[Zale]

I think I saw someone mention that on these very forums.

It would appear so, though. :smallconfused:

[Alleine]

Yes, you are correct

However, the only way to create a hivemind of more that 150 creatures(I think?) is to use the Vermin Lord PrC. Or be the DM :smallwink:

[Ksheep]

I do believe I have a new character concept. Thank you.

[faceroll]

Uh, with Dark Speech, you can just walk up to a generic swarm of locusts, and give it around 70 sorcerer spell levels. That's pretty freakin' silly. Who cares if you can control it? It's a ravenous, devouring swarm of chitinous monsters that has more casting than like 3 greater deities of magic combined.

And you can make these as a standard action. If you have a level 1 warlock friend, you can conjure up 5,000 bats whenever you like.

GOOD PELOR THAT IS SILLY.

[edit]
Early entry to Vermin Lord is actually pretty easy. Start with a Dread Necro, Beguiler, or Warmage chassis. I recommend Beguiler sense you meet the skill requirements quite easily. Grab the arcane disciple feat for the spider domain. This nets you Giant Vermin as a 4th level spell. Swear allegiance to an Elder Evil (worm that walks?) to get Vermin Friend for free. Pick up Heighten Spell, Earth Sense, Earth Spell, Versatile Spellcaster and Sanctum Spell. You can now cast 4th level spells when standing in your sanctum at level 1 (how you get that many feats at level 1... pfff who knows). You also can get 3 ranks in Hide, Move Silently, and 2 ranks in knowledge nature, no problem. Now your second level can be in Vermin Lord. You have a hive mind by level 11. :smallsmile:

TBH, getting all the feats you need is going to be hard. You need a lot of them for early qualification. Save up that gold to chaos shuffle feats you buy from the otyugh hole....

Another way to become a hivemind:
Be a primordial half giant wizard. Buy a wand of Mnemonic Enhancer. Use it a bunch of times so you know have 150 levels of spells. Get slain. Have the proper ritual perfomed over your grave by a trusted minion. Rise as a Worm that Walks. Use Dark Speech on yourself. Ta da! You're a hivemind!

[ILM]

Yeah, there was a TO build on the WotC boards long ago that got arbitrarily high number of spells and DCs using that. The original thread seems to be dead but there may be interesting stuff here (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19860946/AD_Presents:The_H.I.V.E.M.I.N.D.?post_id=338103414 ).

[Alleine]

Huh, for some reason I always read the 150 creature threshold as more of a barrier. Whoops!

This is ridiculous.

[WinWin]

Vermin Lords do not benefit directly from some aspects of a hivemind. They do not gain the bonus intelligence or charisma...The vermin lord will still gain feats and sorcerer casting dependant on their attribute scores.

Their vermin servants do gain the full benefit though. How Vermin Servants interact with various familliar buffs is beyond me.

I started a thread a while ago about an arcane heirophant (using hivemind casting to qualify) and posed a few questions to the playground about various interactions with creatures that possessed abilities 'like a familliar' but got no response.

In any case, a Hairy Spider has an LA of +0 and the vermin type. This makes them eligable for vermin servant (which mentions hit dice but does not preclude class levels). You can see where I'm going right? Chaining vermin servants with various class abilities for one hell of a nasty hivemind.

[dextercorvia]

Uh, with Dark Speech, you can just walk up to a generic swarm of locusts, and give it around 70 sorcerer spell levels. That's pretty freakin' silly. Who cares if you can control it? It's a ravenous, devouring swarm of chitinous monsters that has more casting than like 3 greater deities of magic combined.

And you can make these as a standard action. If you have a level 1 warlock friend, you can conjure up 5,000 bats whenever you like.

GOOD PELOR THAT IS SILLY.

[edit]
Early entry to Vermin Lord is actually pretty easy. Start with a Dread Necro, Beguiler, or Warmage chassis. I recommend Beguiler sense you meet the skill requirements quite easily. Grab the arcane disciple feat for the spider domain. This nets you Giant Vermin as a 4th level spell. Swear allegiance to an Elder Evil (worm that walks?) to get Vermin Friend for free. Pick up Heighten Spell, Earth Sense, Earth Spell, Versatile Spellcaster and Sanctum Spell. You can now cast 4th level spells when standing in your sanctum at level 1 (how you get that many feats at level 1... pfff who knows). You also can get 3 ranks in Hide, Move Silently, and 2 ranks in knowledge nature, no problem. Now your second level can be in Vermin Lord. You have a hive mind by level 11. :smallsmile:

TBH, getting all the feats you need is going to be hard. You need a lot of them for early qualification. Save up that gold to chaos shuffle feats you buy from the otyugh hole....

Another way to become a hivemind:
Be a primordial half giant wizard. Buy a wand of Mnemonic Enhancer. Use it a bunch of times so you know have 150 levels of spells. Get slain. Have the proper ritual perfomed over your grave by a trusted minion. Rise as a Worm that Walks. Use Dark Speech on yourself. Ta da! You're a hivemind!

You can't actually cast the Giant Vermin Spell. You have it as a spell known, and you can cast 4th level spells, but not that one.

[137beth]

Not to mention the CR is the same no matter how many creatures you have. So if 1 of those fine flying creatures had a CR of 1/6, then the swarm's CR will be 1/2, with ridiculous spellcasting.

[Alleine]

Vermin Lords do not benefit directly from some aspects of a hivemind. They do not gain the bonus intelligence or charisma...The vermin lord will still gain feats and sorcerer casting dependant on their attribute scores.

The point of Vermin Lord is simply that you are in complete control of the hivemind.

I also recall someone, perhaps Sinfire Titan, mentioning that the hivemind texts only states you need to have the creatures within 10 feet to create the hivemind. Implying that thereafter they can all split up and go on their merry way with all the godlike powers they want.

[Yorrin]

how you get that many feats at level 1... pfff who knows

1 lvl1
1 Human
2 Flaws
2 Taint
2 Selling your Soul

=easy 8 feats at lvl1

[Cog]

Uh, with Dark Speech, you can just walk up to a generic swarm of locusts, and give it around 70 sorcerer spell levels.
Dark Speech was updated in one of the Fiendish Codices and no longer references those particular hive mind rules. Since that set of rules was a variant itself, a DM would now have to choose to use them rather than having them automatically invoked by the feat.

[faceroll]

You can't actually cast the Giant Vermin Spell. You have it as a spell known, and you can cast 4th level spells, but not that one.

Why not?


Dark Speech was updated in one of the Fiendish Codices and no longer references those particular hive mind rules. Since that set of rules was a variant itself, a DM would now have to choose to use them rather than having them automatically invoked by the feat.

FC1 has only one reference to hiveminds, and that's in the text of the feat for dark speech. It's similar in BoVD, where the text of Dark Speech mentions the creation of a hivemind, but does not describe the rules for hive minds within the text of the dark speech feat. Is there anything more recent than BoVD that describes the rules for hive mind creation?

[magic9mushroom]

Basically RAI on this is that the rules for swarms changed drastically from 3.0 to 3.5 and made the 3.0 stuff outdated/unworkable.

[Psyren]

Basically RAI on this is that the rules for swarms changed drastically from 3.0 to 3.5 and made the 3.0 stuff outdated/unworkable.

I agree, Hiveminds are unusable in 3.5 because swarms updated them.

[dextercorvia]

Why not?

Because your ability to cast 4th level spells is using VS, SS, and ES to cast a 1st level spell as a 4th level spell. You have no 4th level slots to cast Giant Vermin.

[Shadow Lord]

I once had an awesome DM who let me play a swarm of Spiders, and at every level, I would gain HD and enough spiders to bump my effective Sorcerer level up. It was GLORIOUS!

[faceroll]

Because your ability to cast 4th level spells is using VS, SS, and ES to cast a 1st level spell as a 4th level spell. You have no 4th level slots to cast Giant Vermin.

It's actually using two first level spells to spontaneously cast any 4th level spell I know, which happens to be all of them on my list, which includes giant vermin.

[ArcanistSupreme]

According to the 3.5 update I have at the end of my copy of BoVD, it explicitly states that you can't do this. Instead it has a hivemind swarm template that keys off of it's HD instead of the number of creatures.

[dextercorvia]

It's actually using two first level spells to spontaneously cast any 4th level spell I know, which happens to be all of them on my list, which includes giant vermin.

That isn't how Earth or Sanctum spell work. If I am misunderstanding your trick, please explain.

Versatile lets you use two first level slots to cast a 2nd level spell, (usually a heightened 1st level spell -- at least at first). Earth spell and Sanctum spell are going to make that spell a 4th level spell, but they don't allow you to Versatile from 1st to 4th.

Outside of your sanctum, you might be able to VS a Sanctumed 3rd level spell using two 1st level slots, but I just don't see how you can get Giant Vermin that way.