Played as is, this one may be even worse than the shrieker fungus. Not only do you also lack the ability to make regular attacks or to have any kind of magic item (you reach the elusive 1 lb. max heavy load and have basically no body slot) and almost can't be buffed by magic, you have to pay SIXTEEN RHD for it. Yeah, we're removing most of that. And then some.

The cinder swarm is a swarm of fine elementals coming from one or the other Elemental Plane of Fire depending on where you're looking. What? You weren't expecting such a monster to have good lore, did you? It's unexplainably evil (they even acknowledge that it's weird for an Elemental, but don't explain it) and only wants to burn and kill people. I'm sure it makes for great encounters and even better PCs.

Anyway, it's basically just a swarm with all that entails, including woefully inadequate stats. -10 Str, +12 Dex, -6 Con. It also has the Fire subtype and the Burn ability. The Fire subtype is generally useful, which, with that great Dex bonus, will make you avoid the most common AoEs. The vulnerability to Cold isn't great, but nothing crippling, especially if you get Evasion (which you should). Burn gives you 3d6 additional damage and a chance to make your opponents catch on fire (so, at most 1d6 more damage per round for 1d4 round). It also makes any creature hitting you with a natural weapon take damage as if you hit it with your swarm attack. A creature hitting you. A Fine swarm. With a natural weapon. Which they explicitly can't do without a really niche enchantment that probably wasn't put on natural weapons in the history of the game. So, it sucks, everybody knows it. Still slightly better than other swarms, but probably not as strong as the hellwasp swarm. I suggest 4 RHD, DLA-9.


Seriously, there are few worse choices as a PC than this one, no matter the ECL or number of RHD. Don't play a cinder swarm. Next time, after "Undead but it's really an evil Elemental" and "Swarm but it's really an evil Elemental", we'll have "Elemental but it's really an evil Ooze"! The conflagration ooze awaits.