Swarm Offense

[AvatarVecna]

So I was bumming around the epic monster section looking for neat abilities to snipe, and came across the Ruin Swarm again. It's got some decent defenses for it's level (nothing optimized epic characters can't deal with for sure, but better than some get), but it's offense is...well, apparently swarm damage caps at 5d6 period. That damage is dealt automatically to anybody in the 10ft by 10ft area the swarm covers when the swarm ends its move. It also forces a save vs Nauseated, but that's probably more relevant to swarms that aren't attacking epic PCs. It doesn't require an attack roll or a failed save to deal damage, which is nice, and it's dealt at the end of a move action, so potentially two damages per turn per person it can squeeze into its space, but at the same time it's almost universally nonmagical.

Anyway it got me thinking about a few things, which is at least partially based on granting the swarm feats somehow, either by it being an animal swarm, or giving a vermin swarm an Int score somehow (Fiendish template? hivemind? there's options).

The first is looking for feats or items that let you force saves vs conditions when you "deal damage" rather than "when you hit with an attack", the second is looking for things that further boost Swarm damage, and the third is looking for some kind of text indicating Swarm attacks are (in some sense) a natural weapon, and can thus be buffed by things buffing natural weapons to a degree (it seems like they should qualify, but I can't find explicit text on the matter one way or the other).

Another dumb thing I've considered is that, regardless of size, creatures of Tiny/Diminutive/Fine size are allowed to make melee attacks normally, although they have to enter the target's space in order to do so. While giving (as an example) a swarm of 10000 fine spiders 10000 Fine greatswords probably couldn't be balanced at all, I got kinda amused thinking about taking a hivemind and having them both be coordinated enough to work together to wield a regular-sized sword, and have the hivemind Int necessary to gain feats supporting such a fighting style. That kinda depends on whether or not the line "Creatures with the swarm subtype don’t make standard melee attacks" is declaring a limit of swarm capabilities, or is just fluff text acknowledging that "1000 bats wielding a giant axe" is not a thing that normally happens and that's now how swarms generally fight (less a declaration of what they're allowed to do and more a declaration of what they tend to do).

(The obvious answer to "how do you give a swarm better offense" is "make them a hivemind so they can use casting", but I'm trying to look for more standard answers, stuff that might be applicable to animal swarms or hiveminded swarms that aren't abusing the casting benefits. Any ideas beyond "give them casting" would be appreciated. :smallsmile:)

[Blue Jay]

I'm quite interested in bizarre creatures like swarms. I don't have time to post some meaningful thoughts at the moment, but I thought I could at least give a link to one of my rough-draft ideas for a way to have swarms wield weapons.

My swarm template is near the bottom of the list (https://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=14044494#post14044494): it had done thoughts. Maybe that will help stimulate some ideas for you?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Hmm. If you could get a size-increasing spell with no target limit, like a cone, you could make the swarm big enough to make ordinary attacks (and in the process likely suffocate your target and the swarm, but that aside). Spellguard Ocular Spell giant size with lens of ray widening to turn a Fine swarm Colossal?


I've looked through the list of soulmelds and it doesn't seem that they'll be of any use--other than generic bonuses to damage rolls (Lucky Dice), against incorporeal targets (Apparition Ribbon), or when an adjacent target takes damage (Necrocarnum Shroud)--unless swarm attacks are natural attacks.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The best way to optimize swarm form that i've found is being a druid with the ACF that lets you shift into swarms (it's in Sandstorm iirc).
You lose quite a bit of offense compared to normal wildshape but it makes for a powerful defense and offense is handled by being a caster.

Enhance Wild Shape should also let you turn into plant-based swarms like the Dread Blossom swarm (MM3), which adds a paralyzing poison and con damage to your swarm attack and gives you regeneration. Seeing how swarms can attack with a move action you can attack and cast in the same round so it works quite well.

[Efrate]

Short of dark speeching it into hivemind which makes it a crazy good gish candidate, can a worm that walks, verminlord or something similar command them or affect them with some kind of animal spell? Awaken is the one that seems best, so it gets skills and feats. If it can pick up paimons dance of death via binding it might be able to make a ton of normal attacks but there's some real fudging on what exactly counts as a creature with that. It kind of needs to be both a lot of creatures and a single creature.

[Blue Jay]

Short of dark speeching it into hivemind which makes it a crazy good gish candidate, can a worm that walks, verminlord or something similar command them or affect them with some kind of animal spell? Awaken is the one that seems best, so it gets skills and feats. If it can pick up paimons dance of death via binding it might be able to make a ton of normal attacks but there's some real fudging on what exactly counts as a creature with that. It kind of needs to be both a lot of creatures and a single creature.

I think a swarm is technically immune to awaken, because it has a single target. But, if you're okay ignoring that restriction, the Master of Flies PrC from Savage Species gets an Awaken Vermin ability at 9th level to justify it legally.

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If the OP is just looking for ways to make a ruin swarm into a more interesting encounter, consider a couple templates and/or other monsters to pair it with. Unfortunately, you'll probably have to bend or fudge a couple rules along the way.

The one that seems most interesting to me is the Zeitgeist from Cityscape, which fortuitously has the same CR as the Ruin Swarm. If you're willing to fudge/bend a few rules, you could add a template to make the Zeitgeist undead, so it's eligible for the Hivenest template, and use the Ruin Swarm as the swarm that inhabits it. You'd be fudging rules to make the Zeitgeist corporeal and possibly rules to give it a natural weapon or manufactured weapon, but I think the resulting monster would have a lot of the flavor you're looking for. You could even put the Zeitgeist in the form of a mob, so that it's mobbing while the swarm is swarming.

Alternately, since the pre-update version of the Ruin Swarm had the Ooze type, you could fudge a bit to give it the Sentry Ooze template. Or, the Green Ronin Advanced Bestiary book has a template called "Id Ooze," which is a bit like Sentry Ooze, but also lets the ooze wield a shield or a weapon. That could potentially justify a straightforward "let the swarm wield weapons" sort of deal.

Or, you could always just equip the Ruin Swarm with several dancing weapons.

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If you're open to homebrew, (shameless plug) my signature links to a thread with some monster PrCs I made: you could look at the Dire Blob, which gives a swarm some ooze characteristics (or vice-versa), and the Splork, which gives an ooze a temporary humanoid-like form.