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View Full Version : DM Question: Creating your own swarms (minor spoilers)



Zim
2007-07-10, 02:53 PM
Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone out there knew if there was an existing template for creating swarms from a base creature and where I could find it.

I'm running Age of Worms' Encounter at Blackwall Keep, and I want to create a swarm of Kyuss Spawnlings, rather than run the creatures as written. It would be more of a threat to my party than a bunch of tiny zombie-babies, and I'm feeling lazy about running the encounter. 20+individual monsters does not sound fun to run.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, that'd be super!

Thanks!

Prometheus
2007-07-11, 10:53 AM
The rules for swarms helps serve as the template. Swarm damage, distraction, swarm traits, etc. You would, of course, have to add any Special abilities that they would maintain collectively. I would modify another swarm to estimate things like statistics and CR - basically a homebrew.

The reason there is no formal template for swarms is because usually if any one creature is strong enough to be considered an individual threat than it is inappropriate to be treated as a group. The obvious exceptions though are the less-than-1-CR monsters, like how there is both a Bat and a Swarm of Bats. Of course there are also half a dozen homebrews dedicated to turning a group of humanoid soldiers into a Swarm like creature.

Fax Celestis
2007-07-11, 11:09 AM
There is, however, a Mob template in the DMG-II.

Inyssius Tor
2007-07-11, 11:09 AM
Homebrews? (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/863170000) The mob template takes over from the swarm subtype at Small size, so it wouldn't come into play here.



Zim: you know that swarms of Tiny creatures typically contain three hundred of them, right? 'Cuz that would be one heck of a spawning area...

reorith
2007-07-11, 12:01 PM
inb4 dead baby jokes.

my buddy homebrewed a swarm of undead cats. i'll see if i can get him to pm it to you or post it in homebrew or something.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-07-11, 12:50 PM
Time for my patented formula (would help if I knew what a Kyuss Spawnling was):

Monster Creation tip #27: Creating a swarm

1) Check out existing swarms. Notice that the swarms have identical (almost) ability points as the original (e.g. Rat swarm has the same Str/Dex/Con/etc... as a single Rat). So stats are pretty much done.

2) Hit Dice: This is where it gets tricky. There doesn't seem to be any sort of pattern here (Bats and Rats have 1/4 HD, but the swarms have 3d8 and 4d8 HP respectively). Size of the base creature doesn't seem to matter, either (Locusts are more robust than rats). That said, it should likely be quite a bit higher than a regular individual. Once you have your HD, you have your BaB (kind of irrelevant), Saves and all other HD reliant stats.

3) Speed: The swarm uses the speed modes of its base creature.

4) Damage: Damage seems to vary by hit dice. Going by the SRD, I'd ballpark it as:
4 or less HD: 1d6 damage;
5 to 9 HD: 2d6 Damage;
10 to 12+??* HD: 3d6 Damage;
*I don't have my books with me, so I'm not sure of what damage a swarm larger than 12 hit dice deals.

5) Special Attacks: The swarm seems to keep any special attack of the base creature (poison, disease, etc...), with the usual DC of '10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + Con Mod'. I'm not sure about other supernatural SAs, though (if I had an example of another swarm I could find out for sure).

6) Special Qualities: Keeps all the base creature's SQs.

7) Skills: Keeps all racial skill bonuses, other than that, skills seem to be either taken from the base creature, or they add spot/listen to their skill list.

This is going from the SRD swarms, so depending on the base creature, it may be a little more complicated. Other than that, it's not too bad to whip something up.

Alveanerle
2007-07-11, 03:13 PM
My shot at creating swarm of Kyuss Spawnlings.
Accidently it's somehow compliant with what SpikeFightwicky posted (btw, Spike, think you could put forth rest of your monster creation tips? :smallsmile: )

No idea how kosher and rules-obeying it is, its mostly my wild guess basing on KS stats and comparison between bat and bat swarm + some guesswork. Not sure of skill points - spot/listen checks set arbitrary to higher values due to statistics (not ability scores :smallsmile: ).

Removed vulnerability to remove disease due to targettable nature of the spell.

CR given on comparison basis (maybe should be tad lower).

If you think this is too weak monster for a group that will be finishing Encounter at Blackwell Keep, maybe up the HD by few and damage by d6.

K.S. Swarm (CR 6)
Tiny Undead (Swarm) (Aquatic)
Hit Dice: 8d12+24 (76 hp)
Initiative+4
Speed: Swim 40
AC 18, T16, FF14
BAB/Grapple: +4/-
Attack: swarm (2d6 plus poison)
Full attack: swarm (2d6 plus poison)
Space/Reach: 10/0
SA: Create spawn, poison, distraction
SQ: Darkvision 60, scent, fast healing 3, swarm traits, undead traits, half damage from slashing and piercing
Saves: F+2/R+6/W+7
Abilities: Str4, Dex18, Con-, Int2, Wis12, Cha14
Skills: Listen+12, Spot+12, Swim+12
Feats: Toughness, Weapon Finesse

Create spawn: touched corpses animate as spawns of kyuss - delay same as for base creature
Poison: injury, DC14 Fort, 1d6Con/1d6Con
Distraction: Fort DC14


Oh, Zim - if you do use some kind of swarm there - please do stat it here and give the report of the encounter. :smallcool:

Edit
Also - still considering adding DR 3/-. It would be a good approximation of fast healing applied individualy to each member of a swarm.

Zim
2007-07-12, 08:22 AM
Thanks folks, especially Alveanerle for your statted up swarm. The only thing I'll add is turn resistance 2 and upping the fast healing to 5 (more monsters, can add to numbers by absorbing some unhatched eggs).

The CR feels about right, so I can scale the encounter based on how quickly they stop the worms. I figure 1 swarm will equal 1/4 of the eggs. If they can stop the worms before they reach the eggs, no encounter, Ad hoc XP award. If they take a round to stop the worms I can run 1 swarm @ CR 6. Two+ rounds will give them two swarms at CR 8, and if really mess up and kill all the eggs, it could turn into CR 10 with 4 swarms! That would be...bad.

This will be plenty terrifying since the last swarm they fought was a bunch of lame acid beetles. :smallbiggrin:

Alveanerle
2007-07-12, 09:24 AM
Thanks folks, especially Alveanerle for your statted up swarm. The only thing I'll add is turn resistance 2 and upping the fast healing to 5 (more monsters, can add to numbers by absorbing some unhatched eggs).

The CR feels about right, so I can scale the encounter based on how quickly they stop the worms. I figure 1 swarm will equal 1/4 of the eggs. If they can stop the worms before they reach the eggs, no encounter, Ad hoc XP award. If they take a round to stop the worms I can run 1 swarm @ CR 6. Two+ rounds will give them two swarms at CR 8, and if really mess up and kill all the eggs, it could turn into CR 10 with 4 swarms! That would be...bad.

This will be plenty terrifying since the last swarm they fought was a bunch of lame acid beetles. :smallbiggrin:

Regarding turn undead and fast healing for swarms - please consider that each entity within swarm gains the fast healing 3, and also that each entity within is an undead of 1HD. And remember there are around 300 of such within one swarm of tiny creatures.

For fast healing: if you hit one with your sword, the chance of you hitting the same in another round is pretty low. Thus damage lower than the fast healing value can be probably neglected. I'd strongly suggest giving the swarm an additional DR 3/-, to accompany fast healing.

For turn undead: so your cleric turns 2d6+lvl+cha of spawnlings per turn undead? For cleric lvl 7 with cha 18 it's average 18 spawnlings fleeing from the swarm per turn undead. Swarms dissipate when half of their members die. So he should be able to get rid of one swarm with roughly nine turn undeads.

Thus I'd consider granting the swarm a special quality of getting damaged by turn undead (and be immune to its other effects). Say half the turn undead "dices affected" (2d6+CLevel+Cha) gets transferred as damage to the swarm. Or even full "dices affected", if you feel generous to clerics. It still wont instakill the swarm, and give clerics something to do.

Edit
On the second thought, let the cleric turn at his fullest. Full "turn damage". This way the cleric is rewarded for preparing himself well for the undead heavy campaign and investing in Cha/extra turning.

Zim
2007-07-12, 12:22 PM
I think that DR might just be the way to go here and just drop the fast healing altogether. It doesn't seem fair to give the swarm too many SQ, especially at CR6. They are going to be beaten up pretty badly already by Ilthane's guardians, so I don't want to tax them too much.

As for turning, the cleric will be 7th level with a CHA of 15, so it is possible to turn them pretty easily; they're just baby zombies afterall. May TR of 4 might be better, just to beef them up a little.

Thanks for your advice. Z

Alveanerle
2007-07-17, 06:29 AM
Aha! I've just run my party through that encounter using Zim's idea for swarm. The chamber was guarded by young black dragon. Before death, she managed to break the egg (she knew what's inside). The party was too slow to react to worms, and as a result ended up fighting one KS swarm.

If i had one word to describe the encounter, the word would be "yummy"! They believe this was the "boss" fight for the session :smallsmile:
Swarm stats were like these posted here. No DR, fast healing 3, Turn undeads damaging the swarm (2d6+cha+cleric_level damage).

The party was like this:
Human Wizard 5 (fire bursting the swarm)
Human Cleric 5 (good knowledge religion check at the beggining, turn undeading away)
Halfling Rogue 3 / Wizard 1 (did not do much)
Halfling Rogue 3 / Swashbuckler 1 (did not do much - both rogues together managed to just barely fight the fast healing for some time)
Human Scout 1 / Ranger 2 (a few odd hp of damage)

At the end, the party was accompanied by incoming lizardman shaman (druid 6).

During the fight there was a streak of succeeded fort saves for distraction, and failed fort saves for poison. Most Con damage dice were rolled above the average (5, 6, 5, 6 etc :smallamused: ).

All in all, a fun ecounter.
Thank you Zim for the idea!

Keld Denar
2007-07-17, 07:04 AM
I see the encounter as such has already occured. Some things to think about though. I know libris mortis has some rules for swarms way in the back, due to the ability of some undead to burst into swarms (mummies into scarab or scorpion swarms, vampires into bat swarms). They is a pretty good table for scaling damage and save DCs by hit dice. There is also a comprehensive listing of swarm traits differentiated between fine swarms and diminuative swarms. Might be worth looking into if you have the book or the pdf.

Since those swarms are specifically undead, it also has rules for turning undead swarms, but I don't remember them off the top of my head. Take a look though.

Good Gaming!

Alveanerle
2007-07-17, 07:25 AM
Oh my, makes me wish i had Libris Mortis. I wonder how much "off" i was with my swarm stats.

Thanks for the info Lussmanj!