Beguiler and Hivemind

[quiet1mi]

The Beguiler in my game has always wanted to launch a preemptive strike against the formian menace that plagues the elven land with all their rules... The Beguiler wanted to infiltrate their hive and just cause a lot of chaos, some damage, and a few deaths, unfortunately we do not know how charm monster, illusions and patterns work against an enemy that share a hivemind.

[DaragosKitsune]

The classic answer is "however the DM wants it to",

[Urpriest]

The formian Hivemind only really affects awareness of threats. Controlling one won't let you control them all. It's more of an information-sharing thing (plus obedience to the queen) than a real sharing of minds.

[quiet1mi]

It is not a question of control one to control them all, but do they have a psudeo-immunity to illusions and enchantments as unless all of them are affected.

If one sees through an illusion, they all do as they share that information without taking an action. But what happens if I Charm monster a formian, will it still listen to me if the others tell it that I am their enemy?

[Fouredged Sword]

If you create an illusion then all who see it get a save. If there is only one, then only one save. If there are 4, four saves. If any save is passed, then they see through the illusion. The issue of single target spells and such may have to be declared by your dm though, but illusions should work so long as you keep the saves high and the targets few. More than 5-6 targets and you are courting a nat 20 on one of the saves regardless of your save DC.

Though reading the SRD, the hive mind thing isn't spelled out as acting directly like one contiousness. To me it looks more like they get free action talking at 50 miles from the queen. Othern than that they trust one another completly. Charm one and it would get very confused when another forminan orders it to attack you. If the other is higer rank, it will atack without hesitation, regardless of how much it likes you. On the other hand charm monster one of the higher up ranks and you could potentialy walk right up to the queen with it telling all the others that you'r cool. They attack threats, the trick is to not fall into that catagory untill the last second.

[quiet1mi]

Hence being from the plane of law, they follow a strict hierarchy or chain of command... Now that makes sense.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yes, but they are a hive in the way of ants, not parts of one mind. They comunicate flawlessly and instantly, but confuse one and that one is confused. Present several with conflicting data and they all are aware of the conflit of thier senses. If you threw up an illusionary wall and three formians walked past, and once made the save to see through it, all three would know it's an illusion not due to having one set of thoughts, but due to trusting the third telling them it's an illusion. Use this to trick them with doubleblind illusions that layer over eachother, the first hideing the second, and the second hideing a threat. They investigate the illusion only to walk into the trap.