BEEEEEEEZ! Effigy swarms

[Yaitanos]

So, I have a golem master. He's pretty awesome. And I had an absolutely horrible idea to really freak people out. He's a warforged with the camouflaged compartment component, only I've upgraded it to hold a lot more than 10 cubic feet. It now has the dimensions of a type 4 bag of holding. Not cheap... well it kinda was, my dude was built (heh) to build things.

But the idea was that he can open his compartment and release a swarm of construct bees upon his foes. Was also thinking a swarm of spiders, but in the campaign setting something that could fly would be better. So, how would I go about doing that? Closest thing I can find is the effigy template, which does say you can apply it to vermin, and most swarms are vermin. I'm just having a little trouble with finding the cost for the body. Do I do make it using the fine size category, since that's the smallest size (though the math is easy to figure out for diminutive), or do I use the size that equals the amount of squares the swarm normally takes up. For example, the hellwasp swarm is a diminutive magical beast (extraplanar, evil, swarm) but takes up 10 squares so the cost would be equal to a creature of large size.

I know it won't have the ability to crawl into a body an animate it, which I'm actually fine with it not having. That's kinda creepy. Not sure if it would have the immunity to weapon damage though. As the template says it loses all special qualities of the base creature, but since that immunity is based on the size of the individual creatures we reach a bit of a grey area. And since I'm not a fan of grey, lets open a gate the plane of radiance and shine some colors on this!

Aaaaaand go!

[Sgt. Cookie]

Shredstorm, MMIII, is what you're after.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You'd use the value based on the space the swarm takes up. Even if RAW does have the diminutive category listed in the entry's size row, you're making hundreds of tiny robots, not just one.

The swarm traits are derived from the swarm subtype, which your effigy swarm would retain. It keeps the traits. 150% damage from AoE's and immunity to weapon damage for you.

[unseenmage]

"An effigy swarm loses all special qualities, which in this case means it loses all swarm traits. Technically, this means a ... Swarm Effigy is incapable of dealing damage."
Quote from an EnWorld Effigy Guide and Examples:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?313871-Effigy-Guide-and-Examples
Not sure if true but that could definitely muck up your plan.

A note on pricing, as the truly itty bitty sizes aren't on the Effigy price chart you're probably going to want to price this thing based on the volume it takes up rather than on the price of making hundreds or even thousands of veeery small Effigies.
On that note, if it's a completely custom job you could price the finished creature using the Pathfinder rules for pricing constructs by CR here under pricing a new construct:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/magic/buildingAndModifyingConstructs.html

And finally as to construct swarms, there's a Tool Swarm in Dungeon 147 pg 29. It has exactly no special abilities but it would give you a base CR (and thus a base price) for an Effigy Swarm. Just make it's damage all piercing (robot bee stings) add Flying and maybe +1 CR and you're good to go.

Hope some of that helps.

Edit: Another fun idea that's RAW legal but kinda silly, use that same PF page to make your Effigy Swarm into a suit of Construct Armor. Acts like a breastplate when worn then, with a Swift action, you shunt it to an empty adjacent space.
'Hey what's with your armor, it's buzzin... OH HOLE MOTHER OF... BEEEES!!!'

[CTrees]

Edit: Another fun idea that's RAW legal but kinda silly, use that same PF page to make your Effigy Swarm into a suit of Construct Armor. Acts like a breastplate when worn then, with a Swift action, you shunt it to an empty adjacent space.
'Hey what's with your armor, it's buzzin... OH HOLE MOTHER OF... BEEEES!!!'

Awesome. I'm using this. Against my players, obviously.

[unseenmage]

Awesome. I'm using this. Against my players, obviously.

You just made my day. For added horror use the Golem Swarm from Dragon 309 pg 28. It's 3.0 but as written it absolutely decimates mundane construction and items. Also has a nice feature where it removes a randomly rolled object from person(s) within it's area.

If you're feeling especially evil drop an Antimagic Field on it. All of a Golem Swarm's abilities are Extraordinary so it won't care in the slightest.

A caution though, I havn't yet worked out if the wearer of a swarm type construct armor is immune to it's effects or not. As a swarm it might subject it's wearer to the Distraction special quality as well.

[Derpldorf]

You may want to seek out the Shredstorm from Monster Manual 3, it's basically, and come to think of it, literally a cloud of shurikens and lightning. It's pretty much exactly what your looking for, mechanically at least.

[unseenmage]

You may want to seek out the Shredstorm from Monster Manual 3, it's basically, and come to think of it, literally a cloud of shurikens and lightning. It's pretty much exactly what your looking for, mechanically at least.

At fourteen HD with both lightning bolts and adamantine-esque damage I seriously doubt it.

[Yaitanos]

Well, we don't use the pathfinder rules. Our DM thinks the system is broken. No xp cost for item creation being one of the reasons. And funds are kinda limited, so I couldn't afford a 14HD construct anyway. Also, due to the cosmology of this plane (Think plane of air with a fixed gravity and a sun), stone and metal are EXTREMELY rare. So getting the stone or adamantine required for these creatures could be problematic. One of the reasons I wanted to use the effigy template it allows you to make the creatures out of wood. Which is a lot easier to get hold of. Everyone living on floating tree cities and all that.

[Dark Kerman]

I hope he dresses like this. Bonus point if you can shape the bag of holding as a suitcase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYtXuBN1Hvc

[Yaitanos]

I hope he dresses like this. Bonus point if you can shape the bag of holding as a suitcase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYtXuBN1Hvc

..... Brain... damaged. Thank the gods I'm playing a warforged. I can't be this, abomination!

[Yaitanos]

There was an issue in either dragon magazine or dungeon magazine that had options to add onto your constructs. Anyone know what issue? I need to find a way to make a construct put out fires. Twice my ship has gone down in flames. TWICE!

[unseenmage]

You're thinking of Augment Automotons, Dragon 327 page 72.

There is a limited list of augmentations that can be applied to constructs, some only at creation. Each has a CL prereq. and requires Craft Construct and they all only cost you gp.

Strangely enough they function a lot like the PF construct augmentations in that regard, the PF ones only cost gp too.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/magic/buildingAndModifyingConstructs.html

The Dragon augmentations can negate a golem's berserk quality, give Intelligence (and thus feats and skills), and grant extra arms.

Hope that helps.


Edit: Technically speaking, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but modifying constructs can be treated just like modifying any magic item. So long as you and your DM work on it together to maintain balance you could add any ability to a construct that you could to any custom magic item.

Adding new abilities that cost less than the animating ritual costs times 1.5 their price, generally speaking.

[Yaitanos]

So if I were to say, give a golem the ability to use aura against flame as a spell like ability 1/day. It would simply be like adding it to a lantern of revealing?

[unseenmage]

So if I were to say, give a golem the ability to use aura against flame as a spell like ability 1/day. It would simply be like adding it to a lantern of revealing?

Yes, but as with all Custom Magic Items, only with your DMs express permission.

This article from WotC seems to imply that modifying constructs could work just like modifying magic items:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050816a

From the above, "The process of construct creation is just like creating a magic item. The process is described in Chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master's Guide and in Rules of the Game: Making Magic Items."

Then again in the Rules of the Game: Making Magic Items article it first declares prerequisite spells as being only supply-able by the creator then later proclaims that prerequisites can be supplied by other characters, "...including spells..." so I'm not sure how official this official info is.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Rules of the game articles are sometimes seen as semi-official but usually discounted as unofficial.

They're written after the fact by someone (Skip Williams) who is interpreting the rules rather than someone actually making rules with the article.

It's kinda like official RAI, coming from one of the guys that wrote the PHB, but it's not RAW.