A little Swarm optimization

[Jowgen]

I have once again made my periodical return to picking up a strange fascination with one very specific game element and wanting to do something fun with it. The flavour of this month: Swarms.

My interest is not in becoming a swarm via stuff like Swarmshifter or Totemist with Broodkeepers heart, but making the most out of your Swarm-type minions.

First point of interest is acquiring Swarm type minions. The basic option is Summon Swarm, which lasts concentration+2 rounds, giving you either a Bat, Rat, Spider or Crows (ToM) swarm that you do not inherently control. Warlocks can get Summon Swarm as an at will least invocation, as well as a obedient slightly boosted Spider swarm through the Sudden Swarming lesser invocation.

Other suggestions on how to get swarms are welcome.

Next is boosting the power and utility of your acquired swarms. The main thing here is the Dark Unity use of Dark Speech, to give a swarm a hivemind and make it obey one suggestion-type order. As written in BoVD, the Hivemind mechanic is hella broken (resulting in over-God powerful sorcerers), and the only update to to make it work with Swarms in 3.5 (even though the feat got re-printed a whole bunch of times) is a template allegedly created by BoVD's author, available from a collection of stuff called the Leaflets of Triel (some digital BoVD copies have them in the back).

A hivemind swarm is an acquired template which can be applied to any animal swarm or vermin swarm, hereafter referred to as base creature. Such swarms form when its natural habitat has been corrupted by an evil spiritual presence or dark blessing.
Type: Creature type change to magical beast.
Armor Class: A hivemind swarm gains +1 insight bonus.
Special Attack: A hivemind swarm gains the ability to cast spells and vile strike.
Spells: A hivemind swarm can cast spells as a sorcerer, whose level is half its HD (round-down).
Vile Strike (Ex): Half of the hp damage dealt by its swarm attack is vile damage.
Special Qualities: As a magical beast, a hivemind swarm also gains darkvision 60 ft. and low-light vision.
Abilities: Int +4, Cha +10 + ¼ HD.
Skills: Recalculate skill points for increased Intelligence.
Feats: A hivemind swarm gains Eschew Materials as a bonus feat. If the base creature is originally mindless, it also gains 1 feat plus 1 feat per 3 HD.

So assuming that something like this template is in play in lieu of the horrible brokenness that is the original BoVD hive-mind mechanic, it gives us quite a bit to work with (i.e for this thread, lets assume that template is legal at a given table, despite the questionable source).

The Vile strike ability is quite neat. Vile damage is a bitch to heal, and combined with the Blinding ability of a Murder of Crows, it makes the blindness almost permanent in most cases.

The main thing though is the sorcerer casting. At best you gonna get a 2nd level sorcerer out of the basic Summon Swarm options, but considering that you can apparently just give them whatever spells known you please, there's quite a bit of versatility here.

So what 0-1st level sorcerer spells would you give your swarms? I am thinking Hoard Gullet for one. Have your Murder of Crows fly off, swallow a whole bunch of stuff, and then throw it up wherever the most hilarity ensues.

Next up is the fact that we can give the swarms some skill points, and in the case of the spider one, a feat. What skills do you think would be useful to have on a swarm minion, and what kind of utility can we get out of the one feat on the spiders?

Lastly, there is the general question of what else can be done to make your swarms better? Any mundane or magical gear that would work particularly well with them, or spells that could combo well?

[TheCount]

Venom fire spell - makes natural poison attacks deal acid damage as an extra.

Beast Heart Adept from dungeonscape - make that swarm (the magical beast) your companion/ wild cohort on steroids

any method that lets you increase the vile damage dealt be thier attacks, preferrably by increasing the percentage of how much of thier damage output is vile...
...do the vile damage applies to the damage caused by thier poison too?

[Falontani]

Putting this out there: vermin Lord can get vermin companions. These companions can be swarms. At tenth level the class gains a hive mind.

Alternatively in the underdark book you gain a vermin companion, which iirc can be a swarm in place of a druid animal companion.

[Particle_Man]

Would you apply any of this to Mobs (a la 3.5's DMG II, I believe)?

[unseenmage]

The war training template (Warbeast?) from MM2 makes any animal purchasable, theoretically also including swarms.

[Yogibear41]

There is an online druid variant which gives vermin companions including swarms.

One Trick I contemplated but never used was using the Planar ranger with the vermin druid/ranger companion variant for Swarms with the Fiendish template, giving them an Int of 3 and the ability to gain skill points/feats instead of being mindless. There is also that tainted druid feat you could use to accomplish the same thing.

Dragonlance has a prestige class in one of its books that you can gain a Hellwasp Swarm as a companion at higher levels.

[Karl Aegis]

Hiveminds were updated in the Core 3.5 Book: Monster Manual as part of the swarm subtype. A hivemind just makes a swarm vulnerable to mind-affecting effects. This is consistent with Elder Evil's version of the Dark Speech feat.

[Maat Mons]

Dragon Magazine had swarm familiars. It also had the Extra Familiar feat.

There was an ACF that replaced Animal Companion with a sort of familiar, but without penalties when it dies. Maybe combine that with the above.

[Draconi Redfir]

i don't have a lot of optimization advice or anything like that. just a fun story.

In my Way of the Wicked game, my Bugbear/Hobgoblin hybrid character took to collecting Skulls from his most powerful opponents, by book 2 he had a good dozen or so skulls in his possession. He decoratively tied them to his Trident (a weapon he got early on in book 1) as a sort of intimidation factor.

Later on, he custom-built his own Trident out of Adamantine, and had one skull embedded into it's handle. The rest were chained to the prongs of the trident, and raised by the party witch into Beheaded (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/beheaded/severed-head/), which we then gave the Beheaded Swarm (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/beheaded/skull-swarm/) stats. This swarm deals 1d6 damage to anything that gets in it's range, so every time my character hit someone with that trident, he did 1d8+1d6 swarm damage.

as an added bonus, the Swarm was JUST strong enough to fly around with the Trident independently. So if they got separated from my character, they could fly back on their own.

it was effectively a very convoluted way of getting a non-elemental "flaming"-type enchantment on his weapon:smallbiggrin: He continued adding to the swarm any time he could up until the game was canceled.

[Anthrowhale]

Swarms are uniquely difficult to buff because of the swarm subtype. For example swarms are immune to castings of venomfire. The scope of valid buffs is mostly just area of effect based things like prayer and elation.

Antimagic Field merits particular mention, because AMF eliminates the swarm's vulnerability to almost all area of effect attacks in the game. Coupled with immunity to individual attacks for diminutive/fine swarms, to get something nigh invincible. Of course, this doesn't work with magically created swarms unless using Initiate of Mystra. Otiluke's Suppressing Field however provides a similar weaker but more widely usable mechanism.

I vaguely recall that there was some way to turn a single target spell spell into an area effect spell, but I don't recall what it was at the moment. Epic spells can certainly do this. A nonepic approach would blow open the scope of buffs.

[Menzath]

Yeah those gusts of wind dispersing swarms is highly annoying, AMF might be Overkill but not sure if there are any other methods.
The exhalted companion feat would also give your swarms int of 3.
The arcane hierophant would give the swarms an even higher int score at the cost of arcane caster levels.
If you can get swarms as an animal companion then beastmaster could get you many more.

If arcane hierophants companion familiar abiltiy let's your companions actually count as a familiar then different creature types are easily doable...undead(stitched flesh familiar), elementals(bonded summoner), and abberations(fleshwarper).

[Jowgen]

Alright, we got some good ideas here :smallbiggrin:

Taking Improved Familiar is probably the way to go, even though that probably removes the murder of crows from the available list, as that nets us a Swarm that's inherently obedient, and most importantly, the ability to share spells, getting us around the issue of buffing the swarm with creature targeting spells. Plus the immunity to its special attacks should come in all kinds of handy.

Via Aspect of the Wolf applied through share spells, we should be able to make the Swarm Familiar a legal target for Dark Unity, applying the Hivemind Swarm template for Vile Strike and sorcerer casting. Although I'm pretty sure we loose out on being able to grant it a feat at that stage, but the combo allows us to Hivemind template swarm any of the sufficiently low Int swarms on there. All of them actually, if we can also temporarily reduce a given Swarms Int.

This MIGHT combine well with the Urban Companion, IF the improved HP total gained from that version of familiar survives into the swarm. Even if not, it makes this viable for Rangers and Druids, plus the reduced penalty for loosing a familiar should still apply, even if the boosted HP does not.

In terms of further templating, Warbeast is probably a no go at this point, BUT it being a familiar does open up using the Planar Familiar spell (https://archive.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20011020a), so we can make our Hivemind Swarm celestial, fiendish, axiomatic, or anarchic. Anarchic is probably best, as the fast healing (not to mention the slew of energy resistances) should conceivably allow us to circumvent the non-healing quality they have.

In terms of buffing, it being a familiar with a share spells equivalent should alow for the application of greater magic fang and other targeting spells that ought to improve the swarm damage as a natural attack, allowing for more vile damage. If we're doing this through a druid with the urban companion feature, we have easy access to Venomfire, and the share spells buff to natural attack stuff should synergize real well with wildshape and such.

And AFMing the swarm should also always remain an option.

[unseenmage]

...
In terms of further templating, Warbeast is probably a no go at this point, ...
...

On this note check the random animals link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?372681-How-do-template-stacked-Animals-compare-to-more-common-corpses-for-necromancy) in my sig for a list of all the templates that dont change a creature's animal's type.

Half-Machine (Dungeon #91 pg106) swarms sound wierd and awesome.

EDIT
Hmmm, I wonder if there's any space for Construct swarms. I know the options for PF give or take but am drawing a blank for 3.x. Effigy swarms maybe?

[Ruethgar]

The war training template (Warbeast?) from MM2 makes any animal purchasable, theoretically also including swarms.

Warbeast also has a size limitation which excludes all swarms. Medium+ mobs are fine though. Not entirely sure what shenanigan you need to keep them a mob.

[Jowgen]

On this note check the random animals link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?372681-How-do-template-stacked-Animals-compare-to-more-common-corpses-for-necromancy) in my sig for a list of all the templates that dont change a creature's animal's type.

Half-Machine (Dungeon #91 pg106) swarms sound wierd and awesome.

EDIT
Hmmm, I wonder if there's any space for Construct swarms. I know the options for PF give or take but am drawing a blank for 3.x. Effigy swarms maybe?

Well, there is the Universal Key swarm (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20061106a), which is a rather nice cheap construct swarm with some neat utility (plus the quirk of only taking up 5 ft despite being a 2006 publication).

It can't be made into a familiar, but it is possible to give it intelligence via Rudimentary Intelligence upgrade (Dragon 327). Which grants it feats and skill points.

Would be better though if one could find a way to temporarily change its type to animal/vermin so it can be dark speeched. Then it would have a CL of 2, placing us only 3 CL and one extra feat away from being able to give it the Craft Construct feat, so that it can make more of itself, finally creating actual Stargate Replicators :smallsigh:


Warbeast also has a size limitation which excludes all swarms. Medium+ mobs are fine though. Not entirely sure what shenanigan you need to keep them a mob.

Yeah, neither mobs nor warbeast seem to be a good option, though there are bound to be other templates we can somehow apply...

[TheCount]

use giant/monstous vermins?

you can also tack on dungeonbred and magebred on those, no?

[ExLibrisMortis]

The Multiheaded template (from Savage Species) doesn't change the type of affected vermin. Learnean multiheaded centipede swarm (one head on each end of the body, I imagine) can only be killed by severing all its heads, which is very tricky on a swarm of thousands of creatures.

[ShurikVch]

I wonder if Touch of Hate feat will work on a swarm

Swarm + barrel of Illithid's tadpoles = swarm of Half-Illithids

If creature type not too important, then Monstrous Beast, Monster of Legend, Elder Serpent (to a viper swarm), or Pseudonatural templates are possible (the latter - via the Green Rapture drug)


Hmmm, I wonder if there's any space for Construct swarms.Bronze Locust Swarm (Book of Exalted Deeds)
Clockwork Mender Swarm (Monster Manual IV)
Crawling Claw (Lost Empires of Faerûn)
Flying Fingers (Dungeon #127)
Golem Swarm (Dragon #309)
Shredstorm (Monster Manual III)
Soap Swarm (Dungeon #130)
Tool Swarm (Dungeon #147)

[Segev]

I am perpetually saddened that the lycanthrope template removes subtypes, because being a were-murder-of-crows would be loads of fun.

Animate dead works on numbers of hit dice. You can use it, therefore, to animate a whole bunch of rat corpses, which would be either a skeletal rat swarm or corpse rat swarm when you're done. Yes, these are Libris Mortis monsters which, despite not expressly saying so, can be made with the basic animation spell.

Clerical rebuke/command also works on HD, so if you can whammy sufficient HD, you can get control of undead swarms this way. Command undead on a swarmshifter will get you a minion that can turn into swarms, obviously, as well, though the OP seemed less interested in that. It's also very DM-dependent, since there's no canon way to create an undead with swarmshifter template. You'd have to research it specially, which is a DM-involved process, or you'd have to hunt one down.

If you're really patient, and have a slightly permissive DM, command undead on a bunch of individual rat skeletons or zombies would also let you build your own swarm out of them, though you'll need a LOT of castings and the renewal will be a pain.

Control undead works on HD count, and can give control of undead swarms for minutes per level, if you like. I'm not a huge fan, due to the short duration and high level, but it's an option.

Find an elemental swarm of some sort, and the appropriate elemental Domain will give rebuke/command power over them.

In Pathfinder, Lantern Archons can group together into a swarm with its own special build rules. Use planar binding enough times and you can call up enough to order into such a swarm.

Also Pathfinder, but you can make a Trompe L'oeile of any swarm you like; I don't believe that template strips subtypes. (Warning; this is one of the cheesiest templates in PF, in terms of construct-crafting.)

Finding any swarm with a hivemind will let you use magic jar or mind switch to take it over. I like shimmerling swarms, myself, though to be fair, the evilness of mind-swapping and possessing the little guys makes it hard to play the nice and curious character I'd like to have the PC who is the swarm be.

[Jowgen]

So I have been looking into feats that we might give onto a hive-minded Spider Swarm. Which we shall call Lucas.

One option is to try and spec Lucas into a poison crafter. 5 Ranks dropped into Craft poison plus giving Lucas the magecraft spell, adding the -3 int penalty, gives us a craft mod of 7, 9 if we give lucas masterwork tools to work with. Enough for a bunch of poisons, inlcuding the ever usueful Sleepsmoke. Then we can either give Lucas the Poison Specialization feat (Dragon 303), to increase the DC from 15 to 17, or Craft Expertise (Dragon 339) to double how many gp of poison he can make.

Then I found the real handy thing you want to give Lucas: Spellfire wielder.

Swarms do not use their standard actions for anything, simply moving and damaging at the end of their turn. So Lucas can always ready an action to absorb incoming spells as a rod of absorption would. He can then use the spell levels shot at him to fire touch attack ray (half fire half untyped), or heal himself for 2 hp per spell level. All in addition to doing his swarm thing.

[Segev]

So I have been looking into feats that we might give onto a hive-minded Spider Swarm. Which we shall call Lucas.

How in the Nine Hells are you going to pump enough of a cha bonus into this swarm to justify this?

The cute-pocalypse would be worth it, however.

[Draconi Redfir]

if you're going to make a hive-mind spider swarm, at least CONSIDER naming it Spiders Man (https://media0dk-a.akamaihd.net/25/71/71ecfaab8d7610bf41f5a35b8ab47be0-meet-the-new-best-spider-man-spiders-man-a-man-made-of-spiders.jpeg) :smallwink::smalltongue:

[Jowgen]

So it has been brought to my attention that Spellfire is limited in its utility in that Lucas is already immune to targeted spells (minus mind-affecting ones), so enemies are unlikely to try to hit him with those. Still, we can still charge Lucas with SLAs and such to to have him blast and heal, since being immune is different from not being a legal target. I have also being toying with other options.

Fire Devotion. Lucas is now a swarm of spiders on fire that sets things he damages on fire. I can think of no better way to burn down a town.

Also, natural scavenger alongside 5 ranks in survival for a modifier of 9 when scavenging stuff for us in the woods, like herbs and whatnot. Still looking for a way to get him that last +1 so he can take 10 for a 20.