Swarms

[pwykersotz]

I have a player who's about to start gaming who wants to be a swarm. Now, I have no problem with this, and I can thematically work it into game just fine. My question is what is this worth in terms of LA?

For those who want more details, it's a d20modern/D&D 3.5 fusion universe and he'll be a swarm of Nanobots, or for the exact race, a Warforged Swarm. The Nanites have a hive mind. He will be leveling in Warlock.

[Keld Denar]

Libris Mortis has the Swarmshifter template for undead, but it could be easily adapted for Warforged. It's a +1 LA template, for reference.

Especially considering that a lot of the features and immunities of being a swarm overlap with some of the immunities of Warforged.

[Person_Man]

Broodkeeper's Heart soulmeld (Dragon Magazine 350) bound to your Heart chakra (high level ability, minimum ECL 15) grants you the Swarm template, if he's willing to consider Totemist or a Totemist/PrC.

It's a fairly potent template, especially if you're going with the Fine or Diminutive version which is immune to weapon damage. But he's choosing to play a Warlock, which is a weak class. So 'd peg it around +2ish-+3ish, depending on what size creature he's composed of.

[Duke of URL]

I've reverse-engineered a swarm template from just the SRD swarms. As long as you're not adding any HD, the CR is the same as the base creature, minimum 1. While CR and LA aren't directly related, that does seem to imply that the LA shouldn't be too high. I say +1 or a very weak +2.

[pwykersotz]

Cool, I think I'm going to wipe away the negative stats for him being Warforged and make it +2. That seems to be in balance with both popular opinion and with the game. A couple test runs of the character have proven out so far.