The Swarmshaper: a Revised Ikea Terrasque

[Doctor Despair]

"All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity."

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Since the dawn of man, people have made every effort to stave off death as long as possible. A microcosm of this primal, intrinsic urge to survive is reflected in our tabletop games through both the Ikea Terrasque and, later, the Emerald Legion. After some efforts, I think I've developed a step forward for the immortality-enthusiasts among us. I present for the consideration of the forum the results of much research, brainstorming, and discussion: the Swarmshaper.

Spoiler: Background

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For our character, we begin with a middle-aged Rashemi (Unapproachable East) Strongheart Halfling (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting) as the base. Using 32-point buy and applying age penalties, we can end up with 5 strength, 9 dex, 7 con, 19 wis, 16 int, and 16 cha respectively. We take our first class level as a Cloistered Cleric (Unearthed Arcana) of Mystra, taking the Knowledge, Spell, and Good domains, and trading away Knowledge and Good for their respective devotion feats (Complete Champion). We take Slayer of Dragons (Dragon Magic) and Extend Spell (PHb) as our level 1 feats. Then, defending the land from some threat, we perish.

We rise as a Telthor (Unapproachable East, LA+2), eliminating our strength score. As the Fey spirit of a fallen cleric, we should be effectively immortal (read: un-ageing, as our character is currently dead), so our character should be able to wait an indeterminable amount of time before we hear the Platinum Dragon's call to protect the world from the spawn of Tiamat. Using our ECL WBL, we apply the Dragonborn of Bahamut template (Races of the Dragon), stripping away our Strongheart Halfling traits and Telthor qualities, but leaving us with the incorporeal subtype. This means we lose our racial feat and other halfling traits. As per the mechanics of rebirth, we sacrifice our Good Devotion feat in lieu of either of our general feats. We gain the Dragonblooded subtype, causing us to fail to meet the prerequisites of the Slayer of Dragons feat, and allowing us to (again, as per the rebirth mechanics) immediately select a replacement feat. In this case, we select Ghostly Grasp (Libris Mortis), allowing us to continue to interact with the corporeal world, as well as acquire and use gear as a normal character. We take the Heart aspect with the Dragonborn template, gaining a breath weapon that allows us to deal damage without finding special materials, burning spell slots, or using large amounts of arrows/bolts (as the ammunition would become corporeal after we fired it).

In terms of RP, the neutral good or true neutral character is devoted to Mystra and fighting the evil spawn of Tiamat wherever they appear. The build is functionally playable from ECL3, although technically, as the other templates are acquired, you could start play at ECL 1 if your DM will work with you on acquiring them during gameplay (possibly with some sort of homebrew Savage progression). In the absence of that, here is the character thusfar as ECL 3:

Spoiler: ECL 3 Stats

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Race	Templates	Type / Subtypes	Racial Features	Array (Adjusted for Age)
Strongheart Halfling	Dragonborn of Bahamut; Telthor	Fey / Incorporeal; Dragonblooded	Small size; 20 land/fly speed (poor); Rashemi and Draconic languages; +2 dodge to AC (dragons); immunity to frightful presence; Draconic Aspect: Heart (breath weapon); favored class (rogue, fighter)	- Str, 7 Dex, 9 Con, 16 Int, 19 Wis, 16 Cha

HD	Class	Class Features	Feat	Note
1	Cloistered Cleric	Lore, spell domain, turn undead	Ghostly Grasp, Extend Spell, Knowledge Devotion (religion)	We enjoy the benefits of incorporeality as a defensive and problem-solving mechanism. We use Ghostly Grasp to solve problems and acquire gear. We use spells and our breath weapon to contribute to combat.

Spoiler: Strengths: Our Layers of Immortality

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The first layer of our immortality comes as a result of the Telthor template. While becoming functionally ageless, we also gain incorporeality, which provides immunity to all mundane attacks save for those made by mundane materials that emulate ghost touch like seren wood (Book of Exalted Deeds), riverine (Stormwrack), or something smeared with ghost oil (Libris Mortis). We also no longer need to breathe, eat, or drink, so we are immune to suffocation and other sundry fringe effects.

The second layer of our immortality comes by means of applying a persistent (Complete Arcane) selective (Shining South) antimagic field (PHb; see mechanics). This suppresses nearly all (see weaknesses) magical qualities for weapons, rendering them effectively mundane. It also suppresses nearly all (see weaknesses) spells, supernatural abilities, and other magical effects that might be used against us, leaving us vulnerable primarily to instantaneous conjurations used to attack us. Our incorporeal subtype grants us a 50% chance to ignore damage from a corporeal spell, but even so, there is metamagic that can negate that.

The third layer of our immortality comes via gaining swarm traits through wild shape (see mechanics). Among all a swarm's sundry resistances and immunities is an immunity to any spell or effect that targets one or more creatures. This precludes a caster from sending targeted instantaneous conjurations against us; the antimagic field suppresses magic that affects an area. Because the field is selective, it doesn't suppress the wild shape. By using the Halfling Druid Racial Substitution Levels (Races of the Wild), gaining immunity to weapon damage (and rendering the mundane ghost touch weapons useless against us).

As a result, we are functionally immune to nearly any means to attack us. We are immune to most mundane attacks, magical attacks, and attacks that target one or more creatures, leaving us with a few very narrow weaknesses that we can address.

Spoiler: Weaknesses: How Do We Address Them?

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Much of what can bypass this build is generally subject to DM fiat, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for it. There are a few key weaknesses our three layers of immortality leave unaddressed, but we do have the means to answer them.

Spoiler: Deities, Demigods, and DM Intervention

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"Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as [Antimagic Field]. As a result of this, a creature carrying an artifact which either deals magical splash energy damage, or which casts an AoE spell could potentially deal damage to us. Likewise, creatures with divine ranks are unaffected by our AMF, and their abilities should arguably function normally. Neither of these are achievable except via DM fiat, and even within those boundaries, we are still somewhat protected by our swarm and incorporeal traits. Additionally, we can pick up the fire subtype from Mantle of the Fiery Spirit (Sandstorm) for fire immunity. Lastly, we can pick up Craft Contingent Spell (Unapproachable East; see bottom) to throw up instant defenses and block line of effect from these techniques (or respond in some other similarly effective way).

Spoiler: Epic Spells

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Epic spells can potentially bypass an antimagic field. These shouldn't be online for opponents until at least level 21, but even in that case, our incorporeal traits and swarm traits will protect us to an extent. AoE epic spells (particularly those that do not deal damage, or that which are cast by an incorporeal creature) will be particularly dangerous to us, and we can only really answer them thanks to our key defense: Craft Contingent Spell (Unapproachable East; see bottom).

Spoiler: Winking Out

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One possible challenge to us is the interaction between non-undead incorporeal creatures and antimagic fields. The original AMF spell makes no mention of this type of creature. However, the Rules Compendium elaborates that "Summoned creatures of any type disappear if they enter an antimagic area. Incorporeal creatures do the same." This could refer to summoned incorporeal creatures (merely clarifying that incorporeal creatures are also affected under the "summoned creatures" clause), but arguably it would affect all incorporeal creatures. However, even under this reading, such a creature should not wink out unless they entered the field. Moving the antimagic field on top of such a creature should not cause it to wink out, as the field would be entering their space rather than the other way around. While winking out isn't necessarily a detriment to us (depending on where, precisely, we would wink out to, of course, and assuming we can't plane shift back), it definitely isn't positive to lose that action economy.

In the event that a DM rules that no, AMFs cause you to wink-out even if they are moved on top of you, we have a few more defenses we can use. First, we can utilize a variation on the classic tinfoil hat. A large metal cone (taking care not to gain an AC bonus from it and cause it to count as armor, thereby disqualifying us from our druid powers) has permanent shrink item (PHb) cast on it, turning it effectively into a hat of sorts. We put it on, then use wild shape, causing it to meld. Our selective AMF will no longer affect it, as it is melded and has no means for the AMF to get line of effect. When we wink out, however, our items should be left behind, as they are not incorporeal creatures. This means that the hat will appear in our square. The reduce person should then be suppressed, causing it to grow into its former cone-shape, blocking line of effect to the enemy AMF. This will cause us to wink back in, and allow us time to cast or escape underground as need be.

Another strategy we can use is to order-of-operations our way out of the line of effect. As a large incorporeal creature, we can choose to have half our squares underground. When the enemy AMF overlaps us, in addition to causing us to "wink out," it will suppress our wild shape, causing us to return to our medium size. Both should happen simultaneously, and it is important that the latter happens with 100% certainty. It should be at our discretion which square we shrink into. If we choose our underground square, the enemy AMF will lose line of effect to us, causing us to wink back into existence - still underground. Our wild shape will no longer be suppressed, and we should be able to choose the squares we grow into -- this time selecting to grow downward instead. Thus, we should never be subject to an enemy AMF if we don't choose to be. If the DM rules that winking out occurs before the wild shape suppression, then when our wild shape ends in X hours, we get to make that selection again, breaking line of effect so long as they didn't dig out the 10x10 area underneath the squares we occupied above ground.

Before the enemy even reaches us to trigger our response mechanism, however, our Craft Contingent Spell feat (Unapproachable East; see bottom) should allow us to put a contingent spell on our party members or, to be self-sufficient, our urban companion, casting Wall of Stone (PHb) immediately before an AMF would overlap with our own AMF. The wall should encase us entirely (as we voluntarily fail our reflex save), blocking this AMF-charger from reaching us in the first place.

Spoiler: AMF-Users Running Into Melee

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An AMF would suppress our wild shape, leaving us vulnerable to an AMF-enchanted angry man with a riverine sword ubercharging their way towards us. Fortunately, some of the above defenses will help us here. If the DM rules that the enemy AMF doesn't cause us to wink out, our tinfoil hat (see Winking Out) will still come into play when the enemy ubercharges their way towards us, breaking line of effect from their AMF and their attacks. If they can break through the hat and get line of effect to us, they will suppress our wild shape, allowing us to vanish underground as we shrink to medium size, as described above. As above, Craft Contingent Spell (Unapproachable East; see bottom) spells placed on our party members or urban companion can help shore up our defenses here too.

Spoiler: Mage's Disjunction

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Mage's Disjunction (PHb, also known as Mordenkainen's Disjunction) is always a tricky spell to adjudicate in TO discussion. Hypothetically, any character can purchase a component pouch with NI costless artifacts to use as components. Mage's Disjunction would then be a suicide attempt, as it would guarantee the caster fails the will save, destroys NI artifacts, and attracts the attention of NI powerful beings interested in the artifacts. Setting aside that ridiculousness, we can collect artifacts to simulate this effect to an extent.

To prevent the Disjunction from happening in the first place, we can craft a bunch of contingent (Unapproachable East; see bottom) Greater Dispel Magics (PHb) to counter a Disjunction used against us; we need only keep them on someone other than us. More reliably, a contingent Wall of Stone (PHb) should be able to block line of effect from the Disjunction, foiling it with no need for a dispel check.

However, let's assume they were able to bypass those somehow. The caster has a <20% chance to affect the AMF with the disjunction. If we devote an unreasonably large amount of resources towards having three selective antimagic fields active at the same time, we can reduce their chance of success by ~80% for each antimagic field (from 20% to 4%, then to 1%).

Let's assume we have no artifacts and the Disjunction successfully destroys the AMF(s). The Disjunction lacks line of effect to our items (which are melded), but arguably it might affect our contingent spells, as that gear is not worn or carried. We have a decent will save to protect those spells as a full wisdom-based caster. If any of those spells survive, we could have a powerful retort the moment they are unsuppressed.

One last defense we could use for relatively cheap or free is to take advantage of the fact that the AMF seems to need to be destroyed first before items can be affected. We can carry a cheap bag of holding into our AMF, then place it inside another suppressed bag of holding or portable hole; keep these items in a bag or something on our person at all times while our AMF is active. When the AMF is destroyed, and the items make their will save, they will become magical items again, and thus trigger the bag of holding's native effect, tearing a hole into the Astral Plane and dragging us into it. It is an inconvenience to be forced to emergency plane shift in this manner, but it's probably safer than the situation we're in if someone is trying to Disjoin us.

Assuming the spells are all destroyed, and the DM rules the bag of holding emergency escape technique doesn't function for some reason... we are still an incorporeal swarm, and enjoy a vast number of immunities as a result of that, and they likely spent an action this round on the disjunction already.

Spoiler: Initiates of Mystra

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We are a cleric of Mystra who, to qualify for Contemplative, needs to have had a long heart-to-heart chat with Mystra. Mystra is a neutral good deity. It stretches credulity that we would ever encounter a devoted Initiate of Mystra (Player's Guide to Faerun) who was aggressive or antagonistic towards us, as they would certainly be breaking their code and falling as a result... and yet the chance is not 0. Indeed, a fallen cross-class Initiate of Mystra would still technically retain their prerequisites for the feat, even as they lack any other cleric class features, and so would still be able to affect us with spells in our AMF providing they were standing in their own AMF when they cast them.

Against such a cleric, we have some defenses. For example, assuming they pass their caster level check to make their spells function normally in our AMF, we still have our incorporeality and immunity to targeted spells. This means the cross-class-fallen cleric would need to rely on AoE spells, and we have some built-in defenses against those. Our incorporeal type grants us a 50% chance to ignore damaging AoE spells from a corporeal source. Divine Oracle (Complete Divine) grants us Evasion, letting us entirely avoid such an AoE on a successful reflex save. We can apply multiple Magic Mouth (PHb) spells at our highest and lowest caster levels to protect from area dispels. Of course, these are assuming the fallen cleric is able to bypass the spells placed with our Craft Contingent Spell feat (Unapproachable East; see bottom).

Spoiler: Special Notice: Contingent Spells

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Crafted contingent spells (Unapproachable East) are magic items, and thus would be suppressed in our antimagic field. However, we need not place them on ourselves. We can place them on our allies. This leaves us as much versatility as our ingenuity and forethought will allow. At its base usefulness, a contingent Wall of Stone (PHb) placed on our urban companion and set to encase us in a hemispherical dome upon the appearance of specified threats would block line of effect, and most offensive techniques require line of effect. However, this feat will become more useful with the addition of divination. The Divine Oracle prestige class (Complete Divine) offers access to the Oracle domain, and the power of Commune and friends cannot be overstated when it comes to determining what contingent spells will be necessary for the day. The combination of this feat and divination should allow us to effectively shore up any holes in our defense as they appear.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Spoiler: How Does Selective Spell Work?

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Selective (Shining South) AMF should allow us to retain/use our supernatural abilities and cast spells, but our spell effects would still have to follow the normal rules for AMFs apart from the casting (e.g., we can only affect those in our AMF with an instantaneous conjuration, and magic items and other types of spells are suppressed). There's some explanation here as to why this would be the case, courtesy of Anthrowhale. This means we should be able to benefit from our wild shape while otherwise benefiting from the protection of an AMF. Wild Shape, as a supernatural ability, is therefore unique among many shape-changing techniques to gain extraordinary qualities, save for those granted by shape-changing spells cast by Initiates of Mystra (Player's Guide to Faerun). However, other spells and any magic items (such as crafted contingent spells (Unapproachable East)) would be suppressed in the area of antimagic.

Spoiler: How Does Initiate of Mystra Work With All This?

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Initiate of Mystra (Player's Guide to Faerun) allows you to make a caster level check to cast spells that work normally in AMFs and dead magic zones. This means that important long-term buffs like Enhance Wild Shape (Spell Compendium) can be protected from suppression; however, it also means that enemy Initiates of Mystra can still attempt to affect us with their spells (see weaknesses). Notably, the feat only provides its benefit if you are able to cast the spells while standing in an AMF. This synergizes with us nicely, as we plan to be in an AMF all day anyway, so if we can make the appropriate caster level check, we'll be able to function normally while others cannot.

Spoiler: How Do You Get AMF All Day?

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An all-day antimagic field is achievable using an old standby: Divine Metamagic (Complete Divine) and Persistent Spell (Complete Arcane). We use our 6 uses of turn undead from our Cleric level and freely persist our antimagic field, giving us an all-day Selective AMF from a level 7 slot. If we extend it as well, arguably the spell should last 48 hours out of a level 8 slot. As DMM becomes functionally useless after we do this, it is beneficial for us to use Enhance Wild Shape (Spell Compendium) & Fangshield Druid 7's humanoid wild shape (Champions of Valor) to wild shape into a human, gain the racial bonus feat (selecting DMM: Persist), apply our AMF, and then wild shape the feat away.

Spoiler: How Exactly Do These "Floating Feats" Work?

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Fangshield Druid 7 (Champions of Valor) offers, in exchange for one use of wild shape per day, the ability to use wild shape to take on humanoid forms. Among the ex qualities a human (or Strongheart Halfling) gets is their racial general feat. By using Enhance Wild Shape (Spell Compendium), we can gain that ex quality, and use it to apply Divine Metamagic (Complete Divine) to our spells, craft contingent spells (Unapproachable East), or any other miscellaneous task we need a feat slot for, then wild shape into something more potent (such as our swarm form) at our leisure.

Spoiler: How Do You Get Swarm Traits?

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There are two methods in 3.5 that allow you to unambiguously use wild shape to become a swarm:

• City-Shape Druid

Spoiler: Feature

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City-Shape

The ability to transform into an animal is the hallmark of the druid, so much so that even many urban druids choose to retain it. Some, however, prefer the ability to blend and maneuver within the streets of the city, sacrificing size for a wider range of forms.

Class: Druid.

Level: 5th.

Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain all the aspects of standard wild shape (except for the ability to wild shape into an elemental at high levels, which remains unchanged).

Benefit: At 5th level, the druid gains the ability to transform into an animal, as per the standard wild shape ability. She can do this once a day to start with, but the frequency of her wild shapes increases as per the standard druid advancement chart.

At 8th level, the druid does not gain the ability to transform into Large animals. Instead, she may transform into Small and Medium vermin, as well as animals.

At 11th level, the druid gains the ability to transform into Tiny animals and vermin.

At 12th level, the druid does not gain the ability to transform into plant creatures. Instead, she may transform into an animal- or vermin-based swarm, so long as it fits within her standard wild shaping Hit Die limits.

At 15th level, the druid does not gain the ability to transform into Huge animals. Instead, she gains the ability to transform into Large animals and vermin.

Special: The Natural Spell feat functions with city-shape just as it does standard wild shape.

• Vermin Keeper (Underdark)

Spoiler: Feature

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Swarm Form (Su): At 10th level, a vermin keeper can use his wild shape to assume the form of any vermin swarm (any swarm whose constituent creatures are of the vermin type).

When you become a swarm, however, unintuitively, you don't necessarily gain swarm traits. Swarm is a subtype, and wild shape stipulates that you don't gain the type or subtype of the form you assume. There are, however, four swarms that explicitly have swarm traits as Ex abilities:

• Bloodbloater (Fiend Folio p.16)]Medium-Size Ooze (Aquatic, Swarm of Diminutive Creatures)
• Jellyfish Swarm (Stormwrack p.161)]Diminutive Vermin (Aquatic, Swarm)
• Leech Swarm (Stormwrack p.162)]Fine Vermin (Aquatic, Swarm)
• Piranha Swarm (Stormwrack p.162)]Tiny Animal (Aquatic, Swarm)

There are fortunately a few ways that allow us to gain extraordinary qualities from our wild shape forms:

• Master of Many Forms 7 (Complete Adventurer, PrC)
• Enhance Wild Shape (Spell Compendium, Spell)
• Exalted Wild Shape (Book of Exalted Deeds, Feat)

Of these three, to achieve diminutive swarm form, I believe Enhance Wild Shape is the most efficient. We use the Halfling Druid ACF (Races of the Wild) to wild shape into a jellyfish swarm (diminutive), and as it is not an animal, we can't use exalted wild shape.

Spoiler: How Do You Do Normal Things Like Talk or Open Doors as a Jellyfish?

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Ghostly Grasp (Libris Mortis) lets us manipulate physical objects as if we were corporeal. As a swarm, we have effectively thousands of limbs and appendages; tasks that don't require fine motor manipulation should be well within our reach, such as pushing a lever, picking up an item, lifting an object, etc. For things requiring a lighter touch, our Urban Companion can help us out - particularly if we use Improved Familiar (DMG) to gain an imp or quasit.

With regard to speech, the Voice of the City ACF (Cityscape) available at Druid 1 should actually cover it. We can already understand all the languages we know, but with a DC 20 charisma check and this ACF, we can communicate even if we can't speak the language of the person we're talking to (such as if we are wild shaped into a swarm form).

Additionally, our Urban Companion will gain Speak with Master when we have 5 levels in Druid. As our Urban Companion can also have the option to speak common, they can translate.

Spoiler: How Do You Move?

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This one is fairly basic, although it is easy to overlook. As a jellyfish swarm, we'd have a swim speed of 5 as our movement, and we'd have the aquatic subtype. How do we operate outside of the water?

With regard to suffocation, the incorporeal subtype takes care of us. We no longer breathe, so the fact that we can't breathe air is irrelevant.

With regard to movement, the incorporeal subtype also takes care of us:

Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air.

As such, our swim speed should extend to our movement outside of the water too - allowing us to fly. With that said, a 5 foot speed is somewhat limiting, so using spells can enhance or grant us much faster movement.

• Quickswim (1) increases our swim speed by 10 for 1 hour/level.
• Scales of the Sealord (3) also increases swim speed by 10, among other benefits, for 1 hour/level.
• Swim (2) grants a swim speed of 30 for 10 minutes/level.
• Wings of the Sea (1) increases our swim speed by 30 feet for 1 minute/level. (P)
• Speed Swim (1) grants a swim speed of 30 for 1 minute/level. (P)
• Fins to Feet (2) trades our 5 ft of swim for 20 feet on land and lasts for 1 hour/level.
• Fly, Swift (3) would grant us a fly speed of 60 for 1 round. (P)

Note: With any of the durations that are lower than 10 minutes/level (marked by P), persistent spell would allow them to be a viable method out of a higher spell slot.

Spoiler: 1 - 20 Build; Online All-Day from Level 16.

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HD	Class	Class Features	Feat	Note
1	Cloistered Cleric	Lore, spell domain, turn undead	Ghostly Grasp, Extend Spell, Knowledge Devotion (religion)	Taking our cleric level first allows us to retain one of our racial general feats (see background). Our offensive options include our breath weapon, spells, and any projectile weapon we acquire. Our incorporeality allows us to bypass many attacks and puzzles.
2	Druid (Voice of the City, Urban Companion)	Urban companion, nature sense, voice of the city		The addition of an urban companion increases our value in combat; unlike a familiar, we suffer no major penalties for losing our companion in combat (save the 100gp cost if it perishes), so we can use, for example, a viper snake to deal extra damage to enemies. If you are risk-averse, a bat adds some special senses to your repertoire and can fly out of range of enemies. The extra spell slots gained here double our heals and utility.
3	Druid	Woodland stride	Selective Spell	For now, Selective Spell is useful for designating allies as immune to the effects of Entangle or similar area spells we might cast. We don't really benefit from Woodland Stride, but there's not really a valuable ACF to trade it out for either.
4	Druid (Go to Ground)	Go to ground		We get immunity to Urban Tracking instead of regular Track. As an incorporeal creature, it's essentially impossible to track us anyway, so this is a strict upgrade.
5	Druid (Iron Constitution)	+2 on saves against disease	Strong Stomach
6	Halfling Druid (City-Shape)	Undersized wild shape (2/day)	Natural Spell	At this level, if LA buyoff is in play, we can reduce our LA by 1 and reduce our ECL from 8 to 7. Natural Spell is a must for obvious reasons. We gain the ability to wild shape, and the Halfling substitution level reduces the possible sizes of our forms by one category. The City-Shape ACF precludes us from gaining some aspects of standard wild shape, but enables others; as an ACF, it will interact with our wild shape interestingly, and I will note where it differs from standard Undersized Wild Shape as these aspects come into play. In the mean time, we can wild shape into any tiny or medium animal, covering for our poor dex for 10 hours/day while in hawk form or something similar.
7	Druid	Undersized wild shape (3/day)
8	Fangshield Druid	Wild shape (humanoid)		Here we get Humanoid Wildshape, which is... huge. The wording on itself specifically allows you to gain the racial traits of the medium form you take on its own, but a DM might rightfully assume that was a mistake by someone more used to 3.0; if they nerf it to be as alternate form within our size limitations, you can still gain those traits by using Enhance Wild Shape when wild shaped into a Strongheart Halfling. This lets us get a racial bonus feat, which can be used in a variety of helpful ways, offering a lot of power and versatility. I'll make a note of some strong choices as they become available.
9	Druid	Undersized wild shape (vermin)	Persistent Spell	Here, with LA buyoff in play, we can buy off our last LA, finally setting out ECL to our HD. At this level we don't gain access to large forms (as per the City Shape ACF), so we don't gain access to medium forms (in line with Halfling Druid). However, we do gain access to vermin forms. Another important upgrade at this level is the ability to use that temporary racial feat to gain Improved Familiar. The benefits of the feat only allow you to acquire an improved familiar; it is the class feature that allows you to retain them. That means that you can dismiss your urban companion, take the feat, acquire your familiar over the course of 24 hours, then lose the feat. An ideal choice for this would be an imp or quasit (if you are true neutral), as those creatures can turn invisible and avoid foiling any attempts at stealth you may make; they also have dexterous hands, and can speak common, letting them translate for us and handle items we might struggle with when in wild shape. Another major change at this level is the ability to use our racial bonus feat to select DMM: Persistent Spell. We can persist our spell for the day, using up our turn undead charges, and then wild shape into something more serviceable at our leisure, giving us access to long-term buffs well before we would normally gain access to spell slots of that level.
10	Planar Druid	Planar Tolerance		We get Planar Tolerance here, rendering us immune to naturally occurring environmental effects of specific planes. This is important, as once our immunities ramp up, these may have been some of the only effects able to affect us. Things like the save against damage from overhealing on the positive energy plane are very difficult to circumvent without an ability like this.
11	Druid	Undersized wild shape (4/day)
12	Druid	Undersized wild shape (diminutive)	Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion)	The feat is a tax that will be relevant later. As we hit caster level 11, our humanoid wild shape feat can now be used to take Craft Contingent Spell. This lets us put contingencies on ourselves, our animal companion, and other allies to trigger on whatever conditions we'd like. I can't overstate how powerful this is; it's probably the most effective defense in 3.5. The contingencies are suppressed in an amf, so they won't be as valuable on us eventually, but unless it's a personal effect, it need not be placed on us anyway.
13	Druid	Undersized wild shape (swarm)		We get the ability to take the form of an incorporeal jellyfish swarm here (with swarm traits as per Enhance Wild Shape), granting us immunity to any weapon without a magical energy damage rider - and a 50% chance to ignore that if it comes from a corporeal source. We also gain immunity to targeted effects, blocking off tons of magical abilities that would bypass our immunity to all nonmagical attack forms (which already precludes ex abilities that would affect us). That leaves magical area of effect attacks, for which we have a 50% chance to ignore any resulting damage if the ability came from a corporeal source. However, we also take bonus damage should that magical AoE damage get through, unfortunately, but our contingent spells can help stifle those. As a not-very-helpful consolation prize, we become immune to tripping/grappling/bull rushing from other incorporeal creatures too. On the subject of subtype traits, we also gain a the jellyfish swarm's distraction and poison abilities.
14	Cloistered Cleric			This is a lull in our build, but it's a necessary evil. We coast on the power of the immunities we've acquired already.
15	Cloistered Cleric		Initiate of Mystra	We qualify for Initiate of Mystra here, although it isn't super relevant except in that we gain access to Spell Shield. The spell says that at 11th level, you can cast it on yourself as a free action; we are character level 11th, so although I suspect it is referring to caster level, if your DM is willing to green light that, you'd get one or two free-action bonuses to those AOE spells we fear. We also have the chance to have our spells active in AMFs, although we can't produce them ourselves without a divine scroll or Antimagic Torc or something similar. Most importantly, we need to have a chat with Mystra, a servant of Mystra, a solar, or some other being associated with the highest principals of neutral good to fulfill the fluff of Contemplative.
16	Contemplative	Magic domain, divine health		A few things happen at this level. We get access to 7th level spell slots (as an effectively 13th level druid). We get access to the Magic domain, granting us Antimagic Field as a 6th level spell (which we can prepare as a selective spell in our 7th level spell slots, then persist using DMM and a single casting of Eagle's Splendor). This brings our layers of immortality fully online. From here, we have some options. If the game will definitely go to epic levels, continuing to take the full 10 levels in Contemplative might be to our benefit, as getting access to whatever Epic Contemplative would look like would presumably grant us bonus epic feats. However, I will detail a much stronger short-term build path here.
17	Holt Warden	Nature sense, plant affinity		With our most potent power spike so far, our Nature Sense is doubled! Sarcasm aside, we get domain slots here for out Druid casting, and that saves us the guaranteed slots we would have used to prepare Antimagic Field (and the slots we may have used for other Magic or Plant domain spells like Dispel Magic or Identify. Towards the end of our level, we have the option to begin using our
18	Halfling Druid	Camouflage	Arcane Mastery	Using our Scry On Familiar SLA to qualify, we now take Arcane Mastery to be able to more consistently overcome the caster level of our AMF. It's a DC22 to overcome an AMF cast at minimum caster level, so our 25 is an automatic success. In any sort of natural terrain, we can now also use the hide skill. As a diminutive creature, we have a +12 modifier to our hide check, which is nothing to scoff at. We may have a -2 modifier to our dex in this form, but with any amount of ranks put into hide, possibly coupled with invisibility, we will be fairly difficult to spot. This, combined with the fact that many creatures rely on non-visual detection methods (that our incorporeal type renders us immune to) rather than pumping their spot checks, means we become fairly effective as a stealth-based character with minimal investment.
19	Divine Oracle	Oracle domain, scry bonus		The Oracle domain grants us access to key spells like Augury, Divination, and Commune, and these will allow us to gather information and predict threats in a way we couldn't compete with before.
20	Divine Oracle	Prescient sense, trap sense +1		Here we get evasion, and that helps cover for our weaknesses against magical AoE effects.

Thank you so much for reading! In the pattern of the Ikea Terrasque and Emerald Legion threads, I'd like to follow up with some questions:

1. What are your general thoughts or feedback on the build?
2. Can you offer any suggestions with regard to useful feats to pick up temporarily with human wild shape at the start of the adventuring day?
3. Can you think of any better way to defend against an Initiate of Mystra, Disjunction, or any other weakness?
4. Is there any gear or ways to spend WBL that you can think of that would be particularly helpful? Gear melds, and the AMF suppresses a lot of things, so I was struggling to think of useful items apart from blowing all our WBL on Savage Species subtype-granting rituals for more immunities.
5. Are there any weaknesses you can think of that I've failed to identify or address?

[Doctor Despair]

Spoiler: Swarm Statblocks

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Spoiler: Jellyfish Swarm (Stormwrack p.161)

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Diminutive Vermin (Aquatic, Swarm)
Hit Dice: 12d8 (54 hp)
Initiative: –2
Speed: Swim 5 ft. (1 square)
Armor Class: 12 (+4 size, –2 Dex), touch 12, flat-footed12
Base Attack/Grapple: +9/—
Attack: Swarm (poison)
Full Attack: Swarm (poison)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./—
Special Attacks: Distraction, poison
Special Qualities: Immune to weapon damage, swarm
traits, tremorsense 30 ft.
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +2, Will +4
Abilities: Str 1, Dex 7, Con 10, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 2
Skills: Hide +18, Swim +3
Feats: —
Environment: Warm aquatic
Organization: Solitary, fl otilla (2–5 swarms), or colony (7–12 swarms)
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: None
Level Adjustment: —

This patch of water shines like mother-of-pearl. Tiny, clearbodied jellyfish, almost invisible in the water, drift beneath the surface.

A jellyfish swarm drifts with the ocean currents. Its myriad creatures trail poisonous tentacles that can stop a creature in its tracks. This swarm depicts a particularly toxic kind of jellyfi sh, such as the box jelly.

Individual jellyfish in the swarm are a few inches long and nearly transparent.

Combat
A jellyfish swarm deals no combat damage, but its poison is potent. Once a creature is reduced to 0 Dexterity, it typically drowns in short order and the colony feeds on its decaying corpse, which is carried about within the swarm’s mass.

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the jellyfish swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a DC 16 Fortitude save negates the effect. Even with a successful save, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Poison (Ex): Injury, Fortitude DC 18, 1d8 Dex/1d8 Dex. The save DC is Constitution-based and includes a Jellyfish swarm +2 racial bonus. A creature that fails either Fortitude save is also stunned for 1 round.
Swarm Traits (Ex): See page 316 of the Monster Manual.
Tremorsense (Ex): A jellyfish swarm can detect and pinpoint any creature in the water within 30 feet.
Vermin Traits: A jellyfish swarm is immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
Skills: A jellyfish swarm has a +8 racial bonus on Hide due to its near transparency. A jellyfish swarm has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.

Spoiler: Leech Swarm (Stormwrack p.162)

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Fine Vermin (Aquatic, Swarm)
Hit Dice: 2d8–2 (7 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: Swim 10 ft. (2 squares)
Armor Class: 18 (+8 size, +0 Dex, +0 natural), touch 18, flat-footed 18
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/—
Attack: Swarm (1d6 plus blood drain)
Full Attack: Swarm (1d6 plus blood drain)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Anesthetize, blood drain, disease, distraction
Special Qualities: Immune to weapon damage, low-light vision, swarm traits
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +0, Will +1
Abilities: Str 1, Dex 11, Con 8, Int —, Wis 12, Cha 2
Skills: Hide +16, Swim +3
Feats: —
Environment: Warm marsh
Organization: Solitary or plague (2–4 swarms)
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: None
Level Adjustment: —

The water squirms with uncounted thumb-sized sluglike creatures, each one wriggling in an unsettling manner.

Leeches are found in murky water, where they can approach prey unseen.

Combat
A leech swarm relies on stealth and blood drain to quietly disable its target. An unobservant creature can be drained dry without even realizing the cause of its weakness.

(DM Tip: Take note of the PCs’ Spot checks and AC before running an encounter with a leech swarm. Record damage dealt by undetected leeches, but do not inform the player of the damage until his or her character notices the attack.)

Anesthetize (Ex): A creature attacked by a leech swarm must succeed on a Spot check (opposed by the swarm’s Hide check) to notice the attack if both the leech swarm and its target are in murky water at least 2 feet deep. Each round of blood drain entitles the creature to another Spot check to notice the leeches, with a cumulative +2 bonus on the check per round after the first. Characters attacked in clear water, or who have some means of detecting the leech swarm without seeing it, notice the attack automatically.
Blood Drain (Ex): Any living creature damaged by a leech swarm also takes 1 point of Constitution damage as the swarm drains its blood. This damage repeats every round thereafter unless the creature successfully exits the swarm and spends a full-round action removing leeches from its body.
Disease (Ex): A creature damaged by a leech swarm must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or contract red ache (see page 292 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide).
Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the leech swarm’s damage who notices the swarm and begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a DC 10 Fortitude save negates the effect. Even with a successful save, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Swarm Traits (Ex): See page 316 of the Monster Manual.
Skills: A leech swarm has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.

Spoiler: Piranha Swarm (Stormwrack p.162)

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Tiny Animal (Aquatic, Swarm)
Hit Dice: 8d8+11 (47 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: Swim 40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+2 size, +2 Dex, +1 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/—
Attack: Swarm (3d6)
Full Attack: Swarm (3d6)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Distraction
Special Qualities: Half damage from slashing and piercing weapons, low light vision, scent, swarm traits
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +3
Abilities: Str 4, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Skills: Hide +10, Listen +9, Spot +8, Swim +5
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative, Toughness
Environment: Warm aquatic
Organization: Solitary or school (2–4 swarms)
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: None
Level Adjustment: —

The water boils with small, darting fish, each armed with a jawful of razor-sharp teeth.

One of the most feared denizens of warm aquatic environments is the piranha swarm, capable of devouring even a Large creature with amazing quickness.

Combat
Due to a piranha’s unusually strong jaws and sharp teeth, piranha swarms deal more damage than a swarm of their Hit Dice normally would.

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the piranha swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a DC 15 Fortitude save negates the effect. Even with a successful save, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Swarm Traits (Ex): See page 316 of the Monster Manual.
Skills: A piranha swarm has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.

Spoiler: Bloodbloater (Fiend Folio p.16)

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Medium-Size Ooze (Aquatic, Swarm of Diminutive Creatures)
Hit Dice: 2d10+12 (22 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 5 ft., swim 30 ft.
AC: 11 (+1 Dex), touch 11, flat-footed 10
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+1
Attack: Swarm
Full Attack: Swarm
Face/Reach: 5 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Blood drain, distraction
Special Qualities: Amphibious, blindsight 60 ft., fire vulnerability, ooze traits, swarm traits
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +1, Will -5
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 13, Con 22, Int —, Wis 1, Cha 1
Skills: Swim +8
Feats: —
Climate/Terrain: Any water
Organization: Swarm
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: —
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —

The bloodbloater is a fairly small, flat, disk-shaped ooze about 8 inches in diameter with a bulge at the center. It is milky white with flecks of red.

Individually, a bloodbloater poses little threat. However, these oozes tend to congregate in swarms of about 650 creatures, and as such they can be quite a menace to unwary swimmers.

Combat
A bloodbloater swarm simply swims around or slithers over its target and begins to drain blood at a shocking rate. Bloodbloaters have no concept of satiation; upon becoming engorged on blood (and turning milky red in color), they continue to feed as excess blood is forced out of their bodies and into the surrounding water.

Blood Drain (Ex): On each round that a bloodbloater swarm deals at least 1 point of damage to a victim, it also drains blood and causes 1 point of Strength damage.
Distraction (Ex): Any nonmindless creature vulnerable to the swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a Fortitude save (DC 10) negates the effect. Spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a bloodbloater swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check (DC 20).
Swarm Traits (Ex): Not subject to critical hits or flanking. Immune to mind-affecting spells. Immune to damage from all weapons. Immune to single-target spells. Vulnerable to area effects. Does not threaten nearby squares.

Spoiler: What do Swarm Traits Offer?

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So it seems there are a few specific, but concrete ways to gain swarm traits without using Shapechange, Polymorph, True Mind Switch, or some other high-OP spellcasting. So what do we gain by having swarm traits? The Bloodbloater detailed it a little bit, but for our purposes, I'll repeat the traits here:

Spoiler: SRD Types & Subtypes Page

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Swarm Subtype
A swarm is a collection of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that acts as a single creature. A swarm has the characteristics of its type, except as noted here. A swarm has a single pool of Hit Dice and hit points, a single initiative modifier, a single speed, and a single Armor Class. A swarm makes saving throws as a single creature. A single swarm occupies a square (if it is made up of nonflying creatures) or a cube (of flying creatures) 10 feet on a side, but its reach is 0 feet, like its component creatures. In order to attack, it moves into an opponent’s space, which provokes an attack of opportunity. It can occupy the same space as a creature of any size, since it crawls all over its prey. A swarm can move through squares occupied by enemies and vice versa without impediment, although the swarm provokes an attack of opportunity if it does so. A swarm can move through cracks or holes large enough for its component creatures.

A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 300 nonflying creatures or 1,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 1,500 nonflying creatures or 5,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures, whether they are flying or not. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a 10-foot square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking. Larger swarms are represented by multiples of single swarms. The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares.

Traits
A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernable anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage. Reducing a swarm to 0 hit points or lower causes it to break up, though damage taken until that point does not degrade its ability to attack or resist attack. Swarms are never staggered or reduced to a dying state by damage. Also, they cannot be tripped, grappled, or bull rushed, and they cannot grapple an opponent.

A swarm is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate), with the exception of mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects) if the swarm has an Intelligence score and a hive mind. A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells.

Swarms made up of Diminutive or Fine creatures are susceptible to high winds such as that created by a gust of wind spell. For purposes of determining the effects of wind on a swarm, treat the swarm as a creature of the same size as its constituent creatures. A swarm rendered unconscious by means of nonlethal damage becomes disorganized and dispersed, and does not reform until its hit points exceed its nonlethal damage.

Swarm Attack
Creatures with the swarm subtype don’t make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed. Swarm attacks are not subject to a miss chance for concealment or cover. A swarm’s statistics block has “swarm” in the Attack and Full Attack entries, with no attack bonus given. The amount of damage a swarm deals is based on its Hit Dice, as shown in the table.

Swarm HD	Swarm Base Damage
1-5	1d6
6-10	2d6
11-15	3d6
16-20	4d6
21 or more	5d6

A swarm’s attacks are nonmagical, unless the swarm’s description states otherwise. Damage reduction sufficient to reduce a swarm attack’s damage to 0, being incorporeal, and other special abilities usually give a creature immunity (or at least resistance) to damage from a swarm. Some swarms also have acid, poison, blood drain, or other special attacks in addition to normal damage.

Swarms do not threaten creatures in their square, and do not make attacks of opportunity with their swarm attack. However, they distract foes whose squares they occupy, as described below.

Distraction (Ex)
Any living creature vulnerable to a swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ swarm’s HD + swarm’s Con modifier; the exact DC is given in a swarm’s description) negates the effect. Spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills that involve patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check.

Spoiler: SRD Swarm

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Swarm
Swarms are dense masses of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that would not be particularly dangerous in small groups, but can be terrible foes when gathered in sufficient numbers. For game purposes a swarm is defined as a single creature with a space of 10 feet—gigantic hordes are actually composed of dozens of swarms in close proximity. A swarm has a single pool of Hit Dice and hit points, a single initiative modifier, a single speed, and a single Armor Class. It makes saving throws as a single creature.

Many different creatures can mass as swarms; bat swarms, centipede swarms, hellwasp swarms, locust swarms, rat swarms, and spider swarms are described here. The swarm’s type varies with the nature of the component creature (most are animals or vermin), but all swarms have the swarm subtype.

A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 300 nonflying creatures or 1,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 1,500 nonflying creatures or 5,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures, whether they are flying or not. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a 10-foot square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking. Larger swarms are represented by multiples of single swarms. A large swarm is completely shapeable, though it usually remains contiguous.

Combat
In order to attack, a single swarm moves into opponents’ spaces, which provokes an attack of opportunity. It can occupy the same space as a creature of any size, since it crawls all over its prey, but remains a creature with a 10-foot space. Swarms never make attacks of opportunity, but they can provoke attacks of opportunity.

Unlike other creatures with a 10-foot space, a swarm is shapeable. It can occupy any four contiguous squares, and it can squeeze through any space large enough to contain one of its component creatures.

Vulnerabilities Of Swarms
Swarms are extremely difficult to fight with physical attacks. However, they have a few special vulnerabilities, as follows:

A lit torch swung as an improvised weapon deals 1d3 points of fire damage per hit.

A weapon with a special ability such as flaming or frost deals its full energy damage with each hit, even if the weapon’s normal damage can’t affect the swarm.

A lit lantern can be used as a thrown weapon, dealing 1d4 points of fire damage to all creatures in squares adjacent to where it breaks.

Spoiler: Stormwrack

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SWARM
Some aquatic creatures present a negligible threat by themselves, but in the presence of hundreds or thousands of their kind they become terrifying predators.

Swarm Traits: Swarms are masses of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that would not be particularly dangerous in small groups, but can be terrible foes when gathered in sufficient numbers. While a single jellyfish swarm might actually be hundreds of feet across, for game purposes a swarm is defined as a single creature with a space of 10 feet—gigantic schools of piranhas are actually composed of dozens of swarms in close proximity. A swarm has a single pool of Hit Dice and hit points, a single initiative modifier, a single speed, and a single Armor Class. It makes saving throws as a single creature.

A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 1,000 creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 5,000 creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures. Larger swarms are represented by multiples of single swarms. A large swarm is completely shapeable, though it usually remains contiguous.

The aquatic swarms presented here are susceptible to vigorous or stronger currents, such as that created by a control currents spell (see page 114). For purposes of determining the effects of currents on a swarm, treat the swarm as a creature of the same size as its constituent creatures. Current effects deal 1d4 points of nonlethal damage to the swarm per spell level (or Hit Die of the originating creature, in the case of effects such as a water elemental’s vortex).

So, from all of these, we can gather that a swarm is immune to:

• Critical hits
• Flanking
• Weapon damage (if you are diminutive or smaller; if you are tiny, you take half damage from slashing and piercing)
• Staggering or dying as a result of damage (they break up at 0hp instead)
• Tripping
• Grappling
• Bullrushing
• Single-target spells or effects (with the exception being weapon attacks)
• Spells or effects that target a specific number of creatures
• Mind-affecting effects (unless you gain a hive mind, in which case you become vulnerable again)

Swarms are vulnerable to:

• Melee attacks with lit torches used as improvised weapons
• Thrown weapons with lit lanterns (which deals area of effect damage, and therefore probably didn't need a special notation)
• Energy damage from weapons that use a special ability to deal energy damage on a successful hit
• Area of effect spells, effects, or weapons (and, in fact, you take an extra 50% of the damage from such effects)
• Vigorous or stronger water currents (if you have the aquatic subtype)
• High winds (if you are diminutive or smaller)

Now a swarm has some powerful immunities, but they also have some common vulnerabilities. Weapon attacks that deal energy damage, area of effect spells/effects, winds, and currents are not uncommon things to encounter. However, when you begin stacking subtypes, we can see some of these immunities disappear. The spell Mantle of the Fiery Spirit from Sandstorm, for example, permanently grants a character the fire subtype, negating all fire damage (save that which is modified by the Searing Spell metamagic).

Spoiler: What does Incorporeality Offer?

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I N C O R P O R E A L I T Y

Another subtype accessible via the Telthor template is the incorporeal subtype. There are a lot of different entries on incorporealness across several books:

Spoiler: Incorporeality (Rules Compendium)

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Incorporeality
An incorporeal creature is insubstantial, unlike a corporeal creatures, which is solid and tangible. Some creatures are incorporeal by nature, while others can acquire the incorporeal subtype from time to time.

TRAITS
An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It doesn’t need to eat, drink, or breathe, and indeed can’t do these things since it can’t affect physical objects, even air. Such a creature has no natural armor bonus, but it has a defl ection bonus to AC equal to its Charisma bonus or +1, whichever is higher. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifi er applies to its melee attacks and its ranged attacks.

An incorporeal creature has no weight. Further, it can’t set off traps that are triggered by weight. It can’t fall or take falling damage. Most incorporeal creatures can fly.

SENSING
In almost all cases, nonvisual senses are ineffective for detecting or pinpointing incorporeal creatures. Blindsense, blindsight, scent, and tremorsense are all useless. An incorporeal creature moves silently and can’t be heard with Listen checks if it doesn’t wish to be. If an incorporeal creature chooses to make noise, it can be detected by means of normal hearing, or by blindsense or blindsight based on acute hearing. If a creature possesses some other nonvisual sense, use your best judgment in determining the effectiveness of that sense in detecting an incorporeal creature.

HARMING
An incorporeal creature can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It’s immune to all nonmagical attack forms.

Even when hit by spells (including touch spells) or magic weapons, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source—except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons. Although it isn’t strictly a magical attack, holy water can damage incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting such a creature.

For attacks that require attack rolls, the chance to ignore damage is treated as a 50% miss chance. If a creature receives miss chances from multiple sources, such as from being incorporeal and having concealment, they don’t stack. Only the highest miss chance applies.

Nondamaging effects affect incorporeal creatures normally unless such effects require corporeal targets to function (such as implosion) or they create a corporeal effect that incorporeal creatures are normally unaffected by (such as web or wall of stone).

ATTACKS
An incorporeal creature’s attacks ignore natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against such attacks. An incorporeal touch attack isn’t the same as a melee touch attack— armor can work against an incorporeal touch attack if the armor has the ghost touch property.

Nonmagical attacks made by an incorporeal creature with a melee weapon have no effect on corporeal targets, and any melee attack an incorporeal creature makes with a magic weapon against a corporeal target has a 50% miss chance, except for attacks it makes with a ghost touch weapon, which are made normally (no miss chance). If an incorporeal creature throws a thrown weapon or a shoots a ranged weapon, the projectile becomes corporeal as soon as it’s thrown or fired, and thus can affect a corporeal target normally (no miss chance).

An incorporeal creature can’t trip or grapple, nor can it be tripped or grappled. In fact, it can’t perform any physical act that moves or manipulates a corporeal opponent or that foe’s equipment, nor is it subject to such acts. An incorporeal creature that attempts to grapple or move another incorporeal creature or object uses its Charisma modifier for rolls on which a Strength modifier normally applies.

EQUIPMENT
Incorporeal creatures can’t manipulate or carry corporeal objects. A creature must be able to swallow a potion or smear on an oil. Because of this, incorporeal creatures can’t use potions or oils.

Equipment worn or carried by an incorporeal creature is also incorporeal as long as that equipment remains in the creature’s possession. An object the creature relinquishes loses its incorporeal quality, and the creature loses the ability to manipulate that object. Magic items possessed by an incorporeal creature work normally with respect to their effects on the creature or on another target. Similarly, spells cast by an incorporeal creature affect corporeal creatures normally.

OTHER CREATURES
An incorporeal creature can occupy the same space as a corporeal creature, unless the corporeal creature is entirely surrounded by a force effect. An incorporeal creature entering a corporeal creature’s space (or vice versa) provokes attacks of opportunity as normal for moving into another creature’s space. The entering creature must then succeed on a touch attack against the target to share the same physical space. If the target is helpless or doesn’t resist, no attack is necessary. If the attack succeeds, the entering creature moves into the target’s space. This attack deals no damage, even if the entering creature’s touch attack normally deals damage. If the attack fails, the entering creature returns to the space it occupied before entering the target’s space.

An incorporeal creature occupying the space of a corporeal creature might gain cover, while the corporeal creature might gain concealment. See the Sharing Spaces table. For example, a shadow sharing the space of an ogre gains cover, but the ogre gains no benefit. A shadow sharing the space of a halfling grants the halfling concealment, but gains no benefit itself. A shadow sharing the space of a human gains cover, and the human gains concealment. This cover or concealment affects even attacks made by the other creature sharing the space.

Either creature can end the “sharing” of a space simply by leaving that space. Doing so leaves the other creature in the space. If the leaving creature moves more than 5 feet, this movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal for leaving a threatened square.

Sharing Spaces

Incorporeal Creature Is. . .	Incorporeal Creature Gains. . .	Corporeal Creature Gains. . .
Two or more size categories larger	—	Total concealment1
One size category larger	—	Concealment
Same size	Cover	Concealment
One size category smaller	Cover	—
Two or more size categories smaller3	Total cover2	—

1 If the corporeal creature makes a melee attack against a creature outside the space of the incorporeal creature, this benefi t is reduced to concealment.
2 If the incorporeal creature makes a melee attack against a creature outside the space of the corporeal creature, this benefi t is reduced to cover.
3 The incorporeal creature can ignore any armor bonus the corporeal creature might have from force effects.

ENVIRONMENT
An incorporeal creature can’t pass through a force effect. It can pass through and operate in water as easily as it does in air. Such a creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but it must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, which means it can’t pass directly through an object whose space is larger than its own. It has an innate sense of direction, allowing it to move at full speed even when it can’t see.

Although an incorporeal creature inside an object can sense the presence of creatures or objects in a square adjacent to its current location, such objects or creatures have total concealment against the incorporeal creature’s attacks while it remains inside the object. An incorporeal creature hiding inside a solid object receives a +2 circumstance bonus on Listen checks, because solid objects carry sound well. Pinpointing an opponent from inside a solid object uses the same rules as pinpointing invisible opponents. To sense farther from the object it is inside and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object, it has only cover.

An incorporeal creature can also occupy the same space as a solid object without being inside that object, and it typically gains cover from doing so. Compare the size of the incorporeal creature to the size of the corporeal object. Consult the Sharing Spaces table to determine the extent of cover enjoyed by the incorporeal creature.

Spoiler: Incorporeality (SRD)

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Spectres, wraiths, and a few other creatures lack physical bodies. Such creatures are insubstantial and can’t be touched by nonmagical matter or energy. Likewise, they cannot manipulate objects or exert physical force on objects. However, incorporeal beings have a tangible presence that sometimes seems like a physical attack against a corporeal creature.

Incorporeal creatures are present on the same plane as the characters, and characters have some chance to affect them.

Incorporeal creatures can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, by magic weapons, or by spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects. They are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. They are not burned by normal fires, affected by natural cold, or harmed by mundane acids.

Even when struck by magic or magic weapons, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source—except for a force effect or damage dealt by a ghost touch weapon.

Incorporeal creatures are immune to critical hits, extra damage from being favored enemies, and from sneak attacks. They move in any direction (including up or down) at will. They do not need to walk on the ground. They can pass through solid objects at will, although they cannot see when their eyes are within solid matter.

Incorporeal creatures hiding inside solid objects get a +2 circumstance bonus on Listen checks, because solid objects carry sound well. Pinpointing an opponent from inside a solid object uses the same rules as pinpointing invisible opponents (see Invisibility).

Incorporeal creatures are inaudible unless they decide to make noise.

The physical attacks of incorporeal creatures ignore material armor, even magic armor, unless it is made of force (such as mage armor or bracers of armor) or has the ghost touch ability.

Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air.

Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage.

Corporeal creatures cannot trip or grapple incorporeal creatures.

Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.

Incorporeal creatures do not leave footprints, have no scent, and make no noise unless they manifest, and even then they only make noise intentionally.

Spoiler: Incorporeal Subtype (Monster Manual III)

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Incorporeal Subtype: Some creatures are incorporeal by nature, while others (such as those that become ghosts) can acquire the incorporeal subtype. An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells, including touch spells, or magic weapons, it has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Nondamaging spell effects affect incorporeal creatures normally unless they require corporeal targets to function (such as implosion) or they create a corporeal effect that incorporeal creatures would normally be unaffected by (such as a web or wall of stone spell). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting an incorporeal creature.

An incorporeal creature’s attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although defl ection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Nonmagical attacks made by an incorporeal creature with a melee weapon have no effect on corporeal targets, and any melee attack an incorporeal creature makes with a magic weapon against a corporeal target has a 50% miss chance, except for attacks it makes with a ghost touch weapon, while are made normally (no miss chance).

Any equipment worn or carried by an incorporeal creature is also incorporeal as long as it remains in the creature’s possession. An object that the creature relinquishes loses its incorporeal quality (and the creature loses the ability to manipulate the object). If an incorporeal creature uses a thrown weapon or a ranged weapon, the projectile becomes corporeal as soon as it is fi red and can affect a corporeal target normally (no miss chance). Magic items possessed by an incorporeal creature work normally with respect to their effects on the creature or on another target. Similarly, spells cast by an incorporeal creature affect corporeal creatures normally.

An incorporeal creature has no natural armor bonus but has a defl ection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus (always at least +1, even if the creature’s Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus).

An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.

An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard with Listen checks if it doesn’t wish to be. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifi er applies to both its melee attacks and its ranged attacks. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.

Spoiler: Incorporeal Subtype (SRD)

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An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting an incorporeal creature.

An incorporeal creature has no natural armor bonus but has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus (always at least +1, even if the creature’s Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus).

An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

An incorporeal creature’s attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.

An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard with Listen checks if it doesn’t wish to be. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to both its melee attacks and its ranged attacks. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.

The MMIII text is furthermore expanded on in Libris Mortis on pages 140-143.

There are a lot of elements that go into the incorporeal subtype, but in a nutshell, it seems like an incorporeal creature is immune to:

• Nonmagical attack forms from corporeal creatures
• Tripping by a corporeal opponent
• Grappling by a corporeal opponent
• Any corporeal creature's action that would move or manipulate it or its equipment
• Being impeded by water
• Fall damage
• Setting off traps that depend on weight
• Listen checks
• Most nonvisual senses
• Corporeal effects from spells (such as wall of stone or web)
• Eating, drinking, breathing, or anything based on breathing

It also seems like an incorporeal creature is vulnerable to:

• Attacks, spells, etc. from other incorporeal creatures
• Ghost touch weapons (although they still must break AC)
• Positive energy
• Negative energy
• Force effects
• Non-damaging spells that produce an effect

Additionally, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore the following when they are produced by a corporeal opponent:

• Magic weapons
• Creatures whose natural attacks count as magic
• Damage from spells
• Damage from SLAs
• Damage from SuAs
• Holy water (only if also undead)

[Gruftzwerg]

Sorry that it to long to respond. I was trying to find some time to read it.

Would make a really nice BBEG. Because swarm have a good action economy. They can attack and distract multiple enemies without paying any action costs which is a huge bonus for an NPC. Combined with the high defensive abiltities it also is somewhat resistant and thus can take a beating even when focused. If the players aren't prepared (due to the lack of knowledge about the enemies abilities beforehand), they might even need to retreat from the first fight and come back with a better strategy.

[Anthrowhale]

A few thoughts:

A swarmstrike ghoststrike weapon should do full damage, right?

Reduce person targets 'one person' which isn't compatible with being in a swarm?

I've always wondered if there's a way to take advantage of the many bodies of the swarm to do things. I'm not sure how to do that---maybe some kind of overlapping aura or breath weapon.

[Doctor Despair]

A few thoughts:

A swarmstrike ghoststrike weapon should do full damage, right?

I had no idea that weapon enhancement existed. Let's check it out.

Standard weapons are not terribly effective at dealing with insect swarms, but a weapon that has the swarmstrike special ability is much more capable of killing the pests.
A swarmstrike weapon is slightly flexible so that you can swing it quickly enough to swat the insects that make up most swarms. Arrows or bolts that have this special ability are crafted with a wide, flat head that resembles a shovel. The ammunition splatters bugs on its leading edge as it passes through the swarm's space.
The swarmstrike ability activates automatically when you attack a creature of the swarm subtype. No other action on your part is required.
When used to attack creatures of the swarm subtype, the weapon's enhancement bonus increases by 2. Further, a swarmstrike weapon deals lethal damage against a creature of the swarm subtype, regardless of the size of the component creatures or the type of damage dealt by the weapon.

We have swarm traits, but not the swarm subtype, so we should be in the clear here.

Reduce person targets 'one person' which isn't compatible with being in a swarm?

I'm not sure that becoming immune to the reduce person after it was already cast undoes or suppressed the effect. Are there rules designating that this happens?

I've always wondered if there's a way to take advantage of the many bodies of the swarm to do things. I'm not sure how to do that---maybe some kind of overlapping aura or breath weapon.

It's tough because a swarm is treated as a single large creature for game purposes. Additionally, you are the swarm, not any individual creature in the swarm, so I'm not sure the constituent creatures would all benefit from any class features you have.

Edit:

Sorry that it to long to respond. I was trying to find some time to read it.

Would make a really nice BBEG. Because swarm have a good action economy. They can attack and distract multiple enemies without paying any action costs which is a huge bonus for an NPC. Combined with the high defensive abiltities it also is somewhat resistant and thus can take a beating even when focused. If the players aren't prepared (due to the lack of knowledge about the enemies abilities beforehand), they might even need to retreat from the first fight and come back with a better strategy.

Yeah, it's definitely the longest entry I've made, but that's primarily because I put in the relevant rules text entries. Maybe someday there'll be a relevant Villainous Contest I'll be able to use it in. Although come to think of it, I haven't seen those kicking around lately. Maybe it's defunct :/

[Anthrowhale]

We have swarm traits, but not the swarm subtype, so we should be in the clear here.

That's a technicality I hadn't appreciated.

I'm not sure that becoming immune to the reduce person after it was already cast undoes or suppressed the effect. Are there rules designating that this happens?

Not that I know of. The general 'what happens when the target of a spell goes from valid to invalid' question doesn't seem to be well discussed. I expect house rules vary in practice.

It's tough because a swarm is treated as a single large creature for game purposes. Additionally, you are the swarm, not any individual creature in the swarm, so I'm not sure the constituent creatures would all benefit from any class features you have.

Perhaps multivoice? (At least for some kinds of swarms?)

Could a shimmerling swarm with multiweapon fighting and quickdraw throw a zillion spears?

[Endarire]

What base race is this creature/build meant to be?

How do flaws for feats affect things?

Thankee!

[Elves]

Druid turning into a swarm of incorporeal piranhas is pretty badass. Is there a way to do it without LA buyoff?

[Doctor Despair]

What base race is this creature/build meant to be?

How do flaws for feats affect things?

Thankee!

For this build, I'd used half-elf to qualify for Seeker of the Misty Isle. Realistically it could work with any human or human-descended race to be eligible for Human Heritage (and to therefore be a valid target for permanent reduce person).

With flaws for feats, you could move Ghostly Grasp down from level 3 to level 1 for quality of life. I'd consider adding a reserve feat, or generic druid good-stuff from eggynack's guide.

Perhaps multivoice? (At least for some kinds of swarms?)

Could a shimmerling swarm with multiweapon fighting and quickdraw throw a zillion spears?

Multivoice should work, as you do quite literally have two or more heads, although the prerequisites are somewhat problematic. It requires multiattack, so you'd need a swarm with at least three natural attacks. Maybe if you have levels in warshaper?

The Shimmerling Swarm idea is interesting. The game considers you as one creature to prevent you from using thousands of actions and blowing up action economy, but that should mean you qualify for multiweapon fighting -- and should be able to benefit from it -- as you'd be considered to have all those limbs. Man... it seems like the RAI of swarms is that you count as either a single creature or a ton of little creatures (whichever is most disadvantageous for you), but the RAW just doesn't bear it out. I suppose another way to put it is that the game wasn't designed around being able to become swarms. That suits me just fine though, haha.

That's a technicality I hadn't appreciated.

Not that I know of. The general 'what happens when the target of a spell goes from valid to invalid' question doesn't seem to be well discussed. I expect house rules vary in practice.

Who would have thought NOT having the swarm subtype would be the saving grace of a build capitalizing on having swarm traits.

I'd imagine the debate would largely center on whether the newer magical effect rendered the previous magical effect irrelevant or not. For example, if a wizard used polymorph on themselves twice, the first polymorph would become functionally irrelevant unless the second polymorph was dismissed. I'd argue that reduce person isn't irrelevant unless you changed your shape to become fine in size, at which point there is no fine+ or equivalent, and it would be irrelevant.

With that said, it occurs to me there could be a more effective direction to take the build in (that doesn't require Human Heritage / Reduce Person). Previously, you'd discussed the merits of having a Selective Spell AMF (or a regular AMF with Initiate of Mystra) with the Dragonborn Telthor template trick to become immune to magical and nonmagical attacks. It resulted in a character who was functionally only vulnerable to someone with Initiate of Mystra, someone with Invoke Magic, or someone lobbing instantaneous conjurations.

If we can put a Selective Spell AMF on a swarm-shaped druid, they'd be immune to all that plus targeted spells (such as orb of X), leaving us with vulnerability to either an Initiate of Mystra caster or AoE SR: No instantaneous conjurations like:

• Rushing Waters (which is essentially just a bullrush, dealing no damage and having no significant negative effect)
• A few spells that half a reflex half/negates, letting us likely ignore them with access to evasion
• Malevolent Miasma which has a fortitude negates, but doesn't affect those immune to poison
• Hail of Stone (old reliable), but if it's from a corporeal source and unmodified by Transdimensional Spell, we have a 50% chance to ignore its 5d4 (~12.5) damage at least

Selective Spell should leave our wild shape intact, as it's a supernatural ability and should therefore count as "us" and not be suppressed; additionally, this means our strategy of using Exalted Wild Shape instead of Enhance Wild Shape pays extra dividends, as Enhance Wild Shape would be suppressed. We don't get punished for being tiny instead of diminutive, too, as melee attacks fail against us regardless. That does leave AOE damage from a torch or thrown lantern, but again, Mantle of the Fiery Spirit for the fire subtype should see us right as rain there.

A dip into Sacred Exorcist (granting 1+cha turns) with Divine Metamagic should give us enough turns to Persist/Select-ify an AMF for us; it'd be at +7 effective spell levels, so a modifer of +6 should do it. Of course, getting there is the tricky part.

A Contemplative dip could get us the Magic or Protection domains to get access to AMF. We'd still need the Balance, Good, or Elysium domain to get into Sacred Exorcist though...

Ideally we'd somehow cram all this into one build:

Contemplative 1
Druid 1-14
Divine Oracle 2
Sacred Exorcist 1
Seeker of the Misty Isle 1
Warblade 1

Extend Spell
Persistent Spell
Selective Spell
Exalted Wildshape
Natural Spell
Skill Focus: Knowledge (Religion)
Dive for Cover
Ghostly Grasp

It might be a bit of a tall order to cram it all in, but I think we can get most of it. I'm going to wait to tinker with it much more until I get an answer in the RAW thread on the mechanics of cross-class domains though.

[Anthrowhale]

The text for antimagic in the rules compendium makes it clear that you need not be concerned with AoE SR:No instantaneous conjurations.

[Doctor Despair]

The text for antimagic in the rules compendium makes it clear that you need not be concerned with AoE SR:No instantaneous conjurations.

Complete Divine (20) tells us that a non-cleric that gains a domain from a prestige class from Complete Divine can prepare a domain spell instead of one of her usual spells, but never more than one domain spell of each level.

Good catch with the RC text. That would leave... literally nothing, I think, apart from Initiates of Mysta / Invoke Magic-users. We'd also have SR in that case. I'll have to put something together. I think it'll involve an unfortunate dip into Cloistered Cleric for turning/knowledge, but we can avoid the Warblade dip, so that balances out.

[Doctor Despair]

Here with an update! I think we're getting close to an optimal build here. I am of two minds as to how the build would be most effective, but I'm leaning towards dropping a caster level for a Cloistered Cleric dip. Here's where we're at:

Spoiler: Full Casting. Online from Level 16; All-Day from 18

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HD	Class	Feat	Note
1	Druid	Ghostly Grasp	We don't have another class bonus feat to shuffle out to save our human bonus feat, so we can be any humanoid race. This probably gives us a stat bonus to wis, cha, or both.
2	Druid
3	Druid	Extend Spell	We can use our level 2 slots to extend level 1 buffs. Nothing spectacular online here.
4	Druid
5	Druid
6	Druid	Natural Spell	We can cast spells in wild shape; a notable strength, but not out of the ordinary for druids.
7	Druid
8	Druid
9	Druid	Exalted Wildshape	Now we can take the shape of celestial medium or small animals. This mainly grants us energy resistance and SR.
10	Druid
11	Druid
12	Druid	Selective Spell	Here we get the ability to wild shape into swarms -- specifically, a celestial piranha swarm. As an incorporeal swarm, we have precious few vulnerabilities as it is. However, we aim to improve on it. Selective spell doesn't do much for us, but there might be some spells it's helpful with.
13	Holt Warden		This gets us Knowledge Religion as a class skill and some domain slots, and keeps progressing our casting.
14	Contemplative		We take a domain that grants us Dispel Evil or Dismissal; probably Balance. Again, we progress our casting, and now we have more domain spells to use in our domain slots in addition to our plant spells.
15	Sacred Exorcist	Divine Metamagic	We get access to turn undead, and so we can take Divine Metamagic here. For now, we can extend our other buffs for free several times each day.
16	Singer of Concordance
17	Singer of Concordance		We get access to the magic domain here, and that means antimagic field 1/day. We can extend it for free, making it last for 340 minutes; a 6-hour adventuring day might be enough most of the time.
18	Druid	Persistent Spell	Now we can persist our antimagic field, getting the benefits of it for 24 hours at a time (or possibly 48 depending on the DM's reading of that interaction).
19	Druid
20	Druid

Spoiler: Notes

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Obviously I like that this build doesn't drop caster levels. I don't like the fluff it enforces on us though. We need to be a neutral good druid worshipping Io, but also who worships a deity associated with the Balance, Good, or Elyssium domains (none of which are offered by Io). We could technically worship one deity as a Contemplative, then change our beliefs while we are a Sacred Exorcist, as there's no fall mechanic associated with them, but it's still a bit messy for my tastes. There's also nothing explicitly saying your PATRON deity has to be Io; only that your deity is Io. In that case, the character could worship two deities at once, but only have one (their Contemplative deity) as their patron deity. Additionally, as we use the Druid 12 method of gaining swarm shapes, we don't have an easy path to epic progression. Regardless, when it's online, we are specifically vulnerable in these scenarios:

• Mundane sources of ghost touch such as serren, mundane sources of force such as (exclusively as far as I know) riverine, and magic weapons resistant to AMFs such as the Soulknife's Mind Blade and magical artifact-weapons can be used to attack us, as we are a tiny swarm and not a diminutive swarm. We do only take half such damage depending on the type of weapon used, however, and we have DR 10 against the mundane and riverine techniques.
• Epic/deific spells or divine salient abilities can ignore antimagic.
• With a non-zero chance, a mage's disjunction could dispel the field. If we carry a spell component pouch with NI priceless (read: worthless) artifacts, that's guaranteed death for the caster. Very cheesy. Even if the disjunction succeeds, the antimagic field ends, but we are still an incorporeal swarm with all the associated immunities; we can then flee by descending into the ground and blocking line of effect.
• A character with Initiate of Mystra could, if they are subject to an AMF, use their feat to cast an AoE spell that ignores antimagic. We have spell resistance in the event that do, and we have a 50% chance to ignore any damage from an AoE spell, but that does leave us with one last troubling interaction...
• Arguably, a character running on top of us with an antimagic field could cause us to wink out. The original antimagic field states that "Summoned creatures of any type and incorporeal undead wink out if they enter an antimagic field." We'd be safe from that clause, except the RC expanded it: "Summoned creatures of any type disappear if they enter an antimagic area. Incorporeal creatures do the same." This could be read as affecting Incorporeal creatures independently of Summoned creatures, or as clarifying that Summoned Incorporeal creatures are not immune to AMF by merit of being incorporeal. I would argue, however, that even under the reading where non-Summoned Incorporeal creatures are affected separately, a character causing an antimagic field to enter a square occupied by a creature is not the same as a creature entering an antimagic field. Under this reading, summoned creatures would still be suppressed under the spell (as the "wink out" line is really just clarifying what it means for it to be suppressed), and incorporeal undead would still have their supernatural ability to manifest suppressed (again, clarifying that it looks like a ghost "winks out" back to the ethereal plane), but living incorporeal creatures would not wink out unless they took the action to enter the field. Regardless, that still leaves the other weaknesses.
• Being affected by another character's AMF does have the byproduct of suppressing our wild shape, however, and that leaves us... still immune to most things as an incorporeal creature in an AMF. It opens us up to targeted instantaneous conjurations, however, or targeted spells cast by the Initiate of Mystra.

Spoiler: Drops 1 Caster Level. Online from Level 14; All-Day from 15

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HD	Class	Feat	Note
1	Cloistered Cleric	Ghostly Grasp, Extend Spell, Knowledge Devotion (religion)	We trade out one of our regular domains for a domain feat, and trade that domain feat to save our human racial bonus feat from the Dragonborn template stripping it away. This accelerates the build a bit. Additionally, Knowledge Devotion makes Knowledge (religion) a class skill for us, letting us avoid needing to cross-class our entire build.
2	Druid
3	Druid	Divine Metamagic	We get access to Divine Metamagic a lot earlier in this build, letting us extend our buffs for free for a much larger percentage of the game.
4	Druid
5	Druid
6	Druid	Natural Spell	Again, a staple feat for druids.
7	Druid
8	Druid
9	Druid	Exalted Wildshape	As before, we gain access to celestial animals (with all their extraordinary qualities).
10	Druid
11	Druid
12	Druid	Selective Spell	It wasn't our most notable feat before, and it isn't now, but it's necessary.
13	Druid		We get the ability to take the form of a celestial incorporeal swarm here (one level late).
14	Contemplative		We go straight into the magic domain, granting us antimagic field, and so get access to the capstone immunities two levels earlier than our full-casting version. We could use the spell domain instead (to get access to goodies like anyspell and limited wish), but they delays Antimagic Field until 8th level. Technically, we can still extend/select/persist Limited Wish emulating AMF, but that's at 1 level higher (and so we'd have to wait until 16HD to use it).
15	Holt Warden	Persistent Spell	We get an actual domain slot for our antimagic field, and we get persistent spell to have it up all day (or two days at a time).
16	Druid
17	Druid
18	Druid	Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion)
19	Divine Oracle		We get the Oracle domain, letting us warn ourselves about any future dangers we might actually encounter. We can literally "go underground" with our incorporeality if we discover we're going to encounter a threat.
20	Divine Oracle		More notably, we get evasion at this level. If we DO encounter an Initiate of Mystra with AoE spells prepared, or if we are somehow subject to a mundane AoE effect made entirely of force, this will help us to avoid the negative effects they might use on us.

Spoiler: Notes

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As before, we are missing out on epic progression, but as noted in the level 20 notes, we are resistant to any AoE effects an Initiate of Mystra might use on us due to our evasion. Apart from that, it's more or less as the above build, but active several levels earlier and with 1 dropped caster level. I honestly like this one a bit more than the previous one; I think it's more viable early-game with the free extends, and it gets the immunities earlier for the mid-game. It also avoids the problematic fluff issues from needing multiple deities. If the campaign is starting from level 18 or higher though, I think the first build obviously has more staying power, as it has more domains and better casting.

However, if we want to prioritize epic progression and shore up some of our defenses, we'd want to use Vermin Keeper. This does force us to use Enhance Wild Shape to earn our swarm traits, and thus shoehorns us into Initiate of Mystra. A reasonable version of this build might look like...

Spoiler: Drops 3 Caster Levels. "Online" from Level 14; Online All-Day from 19; Epic Progression

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HD	Class	Feat	Note
1	Cloistered Cleric	Ghostly Grasp, Iron Will, Knowledge Devotion (religion)	We start out as a Cloistered Cleric of Mystra. That'll be important later. For now, this looks pretty similar to the previous build.
2	Druid
3	Druid	Extend Spell	We don't have DMM, but we can extend our level 1 buffs at this level.
4	Druid
5	Druid
6	Druid	Natural Spell	Natural spell is a staple as always.
7	Vermin Keeper
8	Vermin Keeper
9	Vermin Keeper	Divine Metamagic	DMM comes online for free extends here.
10	Contemplative		We get access to the Spell domain here from talking to Mystra. This grants us some broad list access in the form of Anyspell and Greater Anyspell (although we can only access the former so far), as well as some required build elements for later.
11	Vermin Keeper
12	Vermin Keeper	Selective Spell
13	Vermin Keeper
14	Vermin Keeper		We don't have access to swarmshape here; hence, the quotation marks around "online." We get access to limited wish here, and that means we get access to Contingency (or extended Contingency with DMM). We can throw up a Contingent Wall of Stone to help us escape dangerous situations as a more potent Wings of Cover by completely encasing us our the source of our danger, buying us time to flee underground. Given how narrow our weaknesses are becoming, it should be fairly easy to nail them down with a contingency. It is preferable to use Contingency than Craft Contingent Spell as a Contingency is actually a spell cast by us, whereas Crafted Contingent Spells are magical items; the former should be protected by Initiate of Mystra, whereas the latter should not. In addition to this, Limited Wish offers more excessively broad list access for us to contribute to the party. For example: it lets us cast antimagic field! It should be an effect "in line with the above effects" to duplicate AMF at caster level 11. Use DMM to add on Extend Spell and Selective Spell to get the effect for almost 4 hours. Notably with regard to AMF and Initiate of Mystra: we can throw on Contingency a month ahead of time, giving you lots of opportunities to retry the caster level check if you fail to overcome the DC22 check. We can retry the check for Enhance Wildshape as many times as we have slots at 4 or higher. We don't really need any other buffs active in an AMF. Granted, we don't HAVE Initiate of Mystra yet, but it's still important to note for later. With that said: being incorporeal in an AMF renders you immune to most things and most enemies that haven't prepared specifically for that.
15	Vermin Keeper	Persistent Spell	Making AMF persistent lets us stay "online" for more of the adventuring day.
16	Vermin Keeper		We get 8ths here, granting native access to AMF if we choose to use that pseudo-domain slot for it.
17	Cloistered Cleric
18	Cloistered Cleric	Initiate of Mystra	As I discussed earlier, Initiate of Mystra lets us keep our Contingency active in the AMF, and it also lets us keep our Enhance Wild Shape active in one too.
19	Vermin Keeper		We get access to Swarmshape here, finally catching us up to (and surpassing in some respects) the immunities we enjoyed five levels earlier in the other builds. We are a diminutive swarm, so we are immune to all weapon damage now (with the exception of elemental splash damage from artifact weapons, which still have a 50% chance to miss us due to incorporeality, and which we may be resistant to or immune to in the case of fire damage). Our contingency can help protect us from other Initiates of Mystra or enemy AMFs by springing up a Wall of Stone in such a way as to break LoS and LoE. This is also assuming we'd have to actually fight other Initiates of Mystra, as we should be on the same side with regard to alignment AND affiliation... We also still have the risk of epic/deific spells, someone rushing or teleporting an AMF on top of us in such a way that it circumvents our contingency (which, if we can beat the Initiate of Mystra caster level check, Anyspell, Greater could help us grab Anticipate Teleportation to help there), and someone giving up their casting/asking deities to kill them by using a Mage's Disjunction on top of us. Separately, and very notable for me, the build is eligible for epic progression, making it a lot more clean in my book.
20	Holt Warden		A dip into Holt Warden grants us actual domain slots, and gets us to our 9ths before the end of non-epic play.

Spoiler: Notes

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This build sacrifices power (in the form of 3 caster levels) in exchange for shoring up most of the weaknesses of the previous builds. As stated in the level 19 notes, we are still vulnerable to:

• Magic artifact weapons that deal enough splash damage to overcome any energy resistances and immunities, and which overcome our incorporeal miss chance. Realistically, the DM could generate an artifact weapon with specific wording to overcome any defenses, so I'm not sure if this is a realistic concern to judge the build by.
• Epic spells and deific spells or abilities. When epic spells or deities get involved, we start getting towards "rocks fall" territory anyway, so again, I'm not sure this is a realistic concern.
• Someone using disjunction to disarm us, then also having the means to kill or instantly disable an incorporeal creature in an AMF. As stated, having a component pouch technically renders disjunction as a suicide pact of sorts, but even avoiding that cheese, we can spend our career collecting as many artifacts as possible in a leather satchel to recreate it to an extent.
• Initiates of Mystra and AMF-users who circumvent our carefully worded Contingent Wall of Stone and whom have the means to overcome our other defenses. Initiates of Mystra shouldn't be hostile to us, so that essentially leaves crafty AMF-users that also have the means to damage an incorporeal creature in an AMF. This would probably mean a targeted instantaneous conjuration,

Spoiler: Questionable TO

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Now, we can improve on it if we add to it in ways that I think would weaken it for a build competition. For starters, we can get Iron Will from the Otyugh Hole, freeing up a feat. We can take Lesser Aasimar as our race, take Human Heritage with our level 1 feat, turn it to Fey with the Telthor template, add the Dragonborn template to stip off native abilities, then use Human Heritage to qualify for Mulhorandi Divine Minion. This grants us "Fast Wild Shape" which lets us wild shape as an 11th-level druid at will, as a free action, and with no time limit. If we use this to qualify for Vermin Keeper (questionable, as it requires Wild Shape as a prerequisite, not Fast Wild Shape, and Fast Wild Shape only allows you to become certain animals, not fulfilling the prerequisite via the Masters of the Wild rules), then we could skip out on taking any levels of druid. We could go straight Cleric (advancing it with Vermin Keeper), and go into some other fun prc for the last 5 levels of the build. We can get Enhance Wild Shape from Limited Wish or Miracle.

In addition to the questionable RAW of using Fast Wild Shape to fulfill the Wild Shape Ability requirement, the fluff requirement is also a tough sell. To be a dragonborn, you have to be wholeheartedly committed to opposing the forces of Tiamat, but there's no other requirement (that I know of) that you worship Bahamut. We have to be a cleric of Mystra for the feat (and for the domains to a lesser extent, as we can swap out Mystra for another deity offering similar domains if needed), which requires a certain level of devotion in order to receive spells. In the other build, you had to also accept Io as a deity, which bothered me a bit, but I don't think there's anything explicitly written to preclude polytheism from a Cleric -- with this template though, you need to be a fanatical follower of your patron (which comes from the Mulhorandi pantheon). This one explicitly requires you to have two different patron deities, and I do think that is precluded.

There's technically no fall mechanic for a Divine Minion. Technically, we could take our first hitdie as a humanoid hitdie before we became an adventurer, become a Telthor, become a Dragonborn, become a Divine Minion, then find new purpose in serve to Mystra. It would be... a very crowded backstory, but I don't think anything precludes it. It does leave my own personal qualm for not liking the template in place though: you can, by RAW, gain NI hp every round by using wild shape NI times on each of your turns. Because of this, the template is in very poor taste in my opinion, and has no place in any PO build. For the TO of it, however, we could drop 0 caster levels in the build through this way.

With that said, we also lsoe out on Strong Stomach, Planar Tolerance, and the ability to have hands while in swarm shape. All of these things are valuable, so it's not strict upside to going this TO route.

Some useful ACFs/Sub Levels for our purposes for the various versions of this build:

• Go to Ground: Trade Trackless Step (3) for immunity to Urban Tracking.
• Iron Constitution: Trade Resist Nature's Lure (4) for Strong Stomach.
• Fangshield Druid 5: Gain hands. No cost.
• Fangshield Druid 7: Humanoid wild shape.
• Planar Druid 9: Trade Venom Immunity for Planar Tolerance.

Which version of the build do you think is most effective?

Although it drops some caster levels, the last version obviously is the most unkillable (and therefore the best comparison to the Emerald Legion). However, without level buy-off, it doesn't get 9ths before the campaign has gone epic. It also misses out on extraordinary Planar Tolerance, so it has to use Initiate of Mystra again to set it up in the appropriate situations.

On the other hand, for PO play, the second version has the least fluff restrictions, comes online the earliest, is most viable early game, and does hit 9ths -- and can use divinations to determine if one of the narrow vulnerabilities of the build will show up that day. For what it's worth, being a cleric of Mystra could also increase the strength of the build by reducing the chance that Initiates of Mystra are allowed or willing to attack us.

However, without relying on information from divinations, and by sacrificing some resistance to Initiate of Mystra casting by losing evasion and direct affiliation with Mystra, the first build has full casting and more domains.

[Jack_Simth]

Ghostly Grasp requires you be incorporeal. You don't qualify when you pick it up. Planning the Dark Chaos shuffle?

[Doctor Despair]

Ghostly Grasp requires you be incorporeal. You don't qualify when you pick it up. Planning the Dark Chaos shuffle?

It is a valid point, but one we thankfully can circumvent, I believe. We should be able to start with a humanoid hit die in our backstory (they do exist, even though no one keeps them as per the humanoid type). While we exist with our humanoid hit die, we will apply our Telthor template. Then, when we are ready to begin adventuring, we will exchange our racial hit die for our first class level, following the rules in the first few pages of Savage Species. Upon taking the class level, we may re-make our feat selections, and we will be incorporeal at this time. Then, with our level 1 feat and human racial feat selected (including Ghostly Grasp), we will apply the Dragonborn template.

Not every DM might be amenable to doing so much adventuring before you exchange your humanoid hit die though. Another strategy to circumvent this and get Ghostly Grasp at level 1 is to, before we take our templates, select a feat for which we will no longer qualify once we add the Dragonborn template, as the template instructs us to immediately replace that feat with any other feat we qualify for (which, at that time, will include Ghostly Grasp). Conveniently, the Dragonborn template will remove our human bonus skill points, so any feat we select that requires any amount of skill points can be used for this. An easy selection for our purposes here is Practiced Spellcaster, as we'd meet it in either build.

[Anthrowhale]

I like the middle build, since it's relatively consistent.

One question though: applying persistent spell requires DMM? But it looks like you only have DMM[Extend]? Is there some DCFS/psychic reformation going on here?

It's interesting that we aren't using the 'swarm form' spell in Dragon# 280.

[loky1109]

Slightly off topic.
What will happen if swarm somehow will be able to become Large? Via Mountain rage for example.

[Doctor Despair]

Slightly off topic.
What will happen if swarm somehow will be able to become Large? Via Mountain rage for example.

That's an interesting conundrum. You'd be a large creature (swarm). There's no mechanism to end your wild shape, and there's no mechanism to make you LOSE the swarm subtype, so I suppose the boring answer is that you'd just adjust the stats accordingly and leave it otherwise the same. More interestingly, for game purposes, a swarm is defined as a single creature with a space of 10 feet, so arguably you'd become... just one large creature, but retain the swarm subtype. It honestly creates a lot of "ask your DM" territory, I think. There's a lot of ways to look at it.

I like the middle build, since it's relatively consistent.

One question though: applying persistent spell requires DMM? But it looks like you only have DMM[Extend]? Is there some DCFS/psychic reformation going on here?

It's interesting that we aren't using the 'swarm form' spell in Dragon# 280.

You know, I've never done a build using DMM before, and apparently I've never read the feat correctly. Yeah, we'll have to adjust it, or else use retraining (which I'm not a fan of most of the time). For only minor changes, we'd have to shuffle the feats around -- probably pushing Persistent Spell down to level 3 as a useless feat, then putting DMM: Persist at level 12, and Selective Spell at level 15. That technically delays us one level to reach the AMF-wielding point of the build.

Spoiler: Optimization Considerations

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It occurs to me, however, that with build #2, we could make good use of the human bonus feat we pick up from humanoid wild shape at druid 9. By spending 1 wild shape/day, we could pick up DMM: Persistent Spell, apply our persistent buff with our turn undeads, then wild shape into something else (such as our swarm form). This is probably preferable, as if we're having an all-day AMF, persistent spell isn't going to be nearly as valuable to us as a two-feat investment. That saves us the slot for DMM: Persist and opens up a slot for whatever we'd like. We could push Persistent Spell down to level 3, as that lets us stay on track for coming online right at level 14, and slot something else in at level 15. Maybe there's something that could address our weaknesses to AMFs/riverine/serren/Initiates of Mystra.

Here's a thought: at level 15, we have an effective initiator level of 7, I believe. We could use our temporary human racial feat to take Martial Study to learn an Iron Heart maneuver when we're close to leveling up at level 14. Then, upon reaching level 15, we could take Martial Study: Iron Heart Surge, thereafter using the maneuver to self-qualify for itself. We'd then get Iron Heart Surge once per round, allowing us to Iron Heart Surge an enemy AMF should someone rush us with one equipped. They'd still get their initial attack off, of course, but if the Initiate of Mystra inflicted some more drastic effect that we survived, it would allow us an opportunity to escape.

Dive For Cover gets us a reroll on our reflex save essentially once/turn. It synergizes with the evasion we pick up from Divine Oracle. Of course, Martial Study (Action Before Thought) might be more useful for essentially guaranteeing a success to allow us the opportunity to flee underground. Most AoE effects are reflex-based, after all.

Another defensive mode that is perhaps more proactive is the Fell Conspiracy feat however. In exchange for some WBL, it can offer the following features:

You gain access to ceremonies based on your ranks in Knowledge (religion). These ceremonies forge a link between participants who work toward a common cause. During each ceremony, all participants huddle together and speak in hushed tones, conveying the dark purpose of the conspiracy. Each ceremony takes 20 minutes, and its effects last for 24 hours.

Common Cause (4 ranks): You confide in each ally, whispering your plans into his ear. Once you have finished, you nick each other's ears with a sharp blade (no damage). Henceforth, each participant can cast the message spell at will at your caster level.
This ceremony requires a masterwork dagger.

Conspiratorial Bond (8 ranks): You concoct a paste of potent herbs and apply it to the eyes and ears of all participants, including yourself. While doing so, you intone a resonating, rhythmic incantation. All participants gain a +2 bonus on Listen checks and Spot checks for every other participant in range. In addition, all participants within 100 feet can communicate telepathically.
This ceremony requires rare herbs worth 50 gp.

Inviolate Link (12 ranks): Using a concoction of blood and hair from each participant mixed with rare herbs and diamond dust, you paint an eye onto the forehead of each ally. As long as they remain within 100 feet of you, none of you can be caught flat-footed unless all of you are, and none of you can be flanked unless all of you are.
This ceremony requires a bit of blood and hair from each participant, rare herbs worth 50 gp, and diamond dust worth 100 gp.

First and foremost: the fact that we cannot be flanked as a swarm now confers unflankability to our entire party. That's not a bad proactive payoff.

The last ceremony should help us avoid getting surprise-rounded by AMF-users or Initiates of Mystra most of the time. We're mostly vulnerable by being struck in the surprise round, so these buffs to our detection and reaction abilities should help protect us -- possibly better than a bonus to a single save -- by allowing us to win initiative and act first.

Spoiler: Immediate Actions are Hard to Come By

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Even if we lose initiative, we do technically still have access to immediate actions, although there aren't a LOT of valuable immediate action spells off of the druid list (or immediate action level 1 cleric spells). If we use the Spell Domain to get access to AMF instead of the Magic Domain, we do also get access to Anyspell lesser and greater though. Persistent AMF is available at the same time via Limited Wish, but it has a hefty 300xp/day price tag. We get access to it as a level 8 spell two levels later than normal. In exchange, we get the Anyspell line, and that gives us access to all the arcane immediate actions. Unfortunately, most of the immediate-action spells I'm seeing are suppressed by AMF (therefore being unhelpful against the AMF melee-character and the AMF-wearing Initiate of Mystra). This is a perfect situation for Abrupt Jaunt, but that would require losing ANOTHER caster level...

Here's a thought... Retributive Spell gets us something approaching a contingency (an automatically cast spell when we take damage from a melee attack), but it must be cast on the attacker (it may have to target, or it might be enough just to affect the attacker, but let's be conservative). I don't think it's normally good enough unless we spend an action every round preparing an action to attack ourselves if X happens... but maybe we could attack of opportunity ourselves to trigger it. I'm not sure how we would take an action to trigger this if we are already going to use our immediate action to cast the Retributive Spell though, and our swarm traits ironically prevent all the good targeted spells from working on us anyway. :/

So for defensive abilities, it seems like our best options might be Dive For Cover (advantage on reflex saves), Martial Study: Action Before Thought (pass 1 reflex save/encounter), Fell Conspiracy (large bonus to spot/listen, if one ally wins initiative then we aren't flat-footed), or good old Improved Initiative. We could also just take Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion) at 15 and enter Divine Oracle earlier for faster access to evasion, then take the extra defensive feat afterward...

• If an Initiate of Mystra decides to cast at us, we primarily need to worry about AoE spells. Reflex saves help us there.
• If an Initiate of Mystra runs on top of us with an AMF, we really just want to have won initiative in the first place.
• If a non-IoM character runs or teleports on top of us with an AMF, we have to worry about targeted instantaneous conjurations, riverine melee attacks, and seren ranged attacks. As a diminutive swarm, we have to worry about the latter anyway. So long as they don't kill us in one hit, we can flee underground, so that leaves getting nonmagical DR, raising our AC, or just trying to go first.

As I said, we probably won't need to worry about Initiates of Mystra, as any attacking us would probably be violating their code of conduct and losing their class features. I suppose technically that by itself doesn't mean they don't have 3 levels in cleric, so they could still do their thing, and one spell might be enough to end us in a game of rocket tag, but even so, realistically the melee AMF uberchargers are the bigger concern. I don't know that we will be able to beat their raw numbers, as uber chargers tend to be pretty good at what they do, so I think slipping in Fell Conspiracy to prevent surprise rounds is probably the most effective for denying them the surprise round and letting us go first.

It's interesting that we aren't using the 'swarm form' spell in Dragon# 280.

I try to avoid Dragon if I can most of the time. However, that'd definitely be more of an Initiate of Mystra built, as the AMF would suppress it. You'd also lose out on the incorporeal subtype, although you could persist some other effect to gain the benefits of it. A big point against it, I feel, is that it explicitly prevents you from casting spells with verbal, somatic, or focus components; it's not even something you can circumvent with Surrogate Spellcasting. :/

Spoiler: Various More Optimization Considerations

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Edit: Man, it is difficult to circumvent an angry ubercharging man with a riverine sword and an antimagic torc. We can just do most of our gameplay flying above reach as an incorporeal swarm, but there are nonmagical forms of flight... It seems like the build honestly needs Initiate of Mystra for the contingency. Even if we rule out combat with other Initiates of Mystra, it seems like Contingency is the only thing that will protect a character from being charged and murdered by the aforementioned angry man. Even Abrupt Jaunt doesn't help if they win initiative.

Edit2: Wait! I think I've got it. Unsurprisingly, it comes down to the most broken feat in 3.5 after Epic Spellcasting: Craft Contingent Spell. I kept ruling out Craft Contingent Spell on the basis that any contingent spells would be suppressed by our AMF. However, unlike contingency, the feat isn't personal. We can put the spells on our party members or, to be more self-sufficient, our animal companion. The second build regains a ton of viability with that addition, as we can get our contingent Wall of Stone or Wall of Salt set to encase us in the event that an Initiate of Mystra or anyone with seren or riverine on their person. If we are encased, we'll immediately know to dive underground for safety and fight cautiously. This is clearly the correct level 15 feat to select for the build.

Edit2b: This more or less solidifies my feelings that the full-casting Druid 12 version isn't correct, as it has no room for the Contingent Spell feat.

Edit3a: If we're willing to introduce a specific item (or in this case, a spellcasting service), then finding an Initiate of Mystra to cast permanent Reduce Person on us using the benefits of their feat would actually negate the damage from seren and riverine weapons too, as we'd be a diminutive swarm instead of a tiny swarm, but I also prefer to have native access to an answer in the form of Craft Contingent Spell.

Edit 3b: So with Reduce Person active, we'd drop 1 caster level, but be immune to everything but an AMF-bearing ubercharger with a serren or riverine weapon, an Initiate of Mystra going against their code of conduct to charge at us with an AMF and then casting at us, or that same Initiate of Mystra standing back and throwing AoE spells at us.

As one line of defense, our contingent wall of stone should trigger, encasing us and allowing us to escape underground. That should easily be enough to foil a mundane ubercharger in an AMF, although casters have more options.

If an Initiate of Mystra is somehow able to prevent our contingency from activating (maybe with a ton of stacked contingencies of their own or something on one of their party members) and still takes their action before us, or if they use Celerity to remove our stone wall and take another action, we have evasion to protect from their AoE to buy us time to flee underground.

With regard to both of these dangers: the Oracle domain should allow us some amount of warning that we may face AMF-related dangers today.

Outside of these dangers, we are only at risk from magic artifact weapons with splash damage, epic/deific powers, and mage's disjunction. The last is a suicide mission, and the first two are somewhat DM fiat and make their own rules, so I feel somewhat safe ruling them out as valid concerns.

The only thing that troubles me about this build is the lack of epic progression. :/ I suppose you can still hit it by 25HD if you skip out on the last three levels of Druid and go straight into Divine Oracle for 16-20.

Edit4 Man, getting that floating human feat at Druid 7 is really good. We can actually just use it to take Craft Contingent Spell, make the spells we want to make, then swap it out. There's no need to devote a dedicated feat slot to it. My vote is back on Fell Conspiracy for the extra feat slot, as it can prevent any of our allies from being flanked, and our allies win initiative to survive. It also gives us telepathy so we don't need to rely as much on our Voice of the City wisdom checks. However, in the interest of speeding up epic progression, I do think we should use the level 15 feat slot for Skill Focus: Religion.

This might be something approaching a finalized version:

Spoiler: Drops 1 Caster Level. Online All-Day from Level 14.

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HD	Class	Feat	Note
1	Cloistered Cleric	Ghostly Grasp, Extend Spell, Knowledge Devotion (religion)	We trade out one of our regular domains for a domain feat, and trade that domain feat to save our human racial bonus feat from the Dragonborn template stripping it away. We have a supernatural breath weapon to contribute in combat, and we can still pick up and use items and equipment to a limited extent with Ghostly Grasp.
2	Druid (Voice of the City)		The addition of an animal companion doubles our value in combat, and the extra spell slots double our out-of-combat heals. The ACF lets us attempt to communicate while we are in swarm form.
3	Druid	Persistent Spell	This is a dead feat, but required for the build.
4	Druid (Go to Ground)		We get immunity to Urban Tracking instead of regular Track. As an incorporeal creature, it's essentially impossible to track us anyway, so this is a strict upgrade.
5	Druid (Iron Constitution)	Strong Stomach
6	Fangshield Druid	Natural Spell	Again, a staple feat for druids. We also get hands while we're in wild shape!
7	Druid
8	Fangshield Druid		Here we get Humanoid Wildshape, which is... huge. This lets us get a human racial bonus feat, for which we will select DMM: Persistent Spell. We can persist our spell for the day, using up our turn undeads, and then wild shape into something more serviceable at our leisure. This will also become more powerful later as we qualify for more powerful feats. We only gain the feat if we use Enhance Wild Shape though, and we don't have unlimited 4th level slots, so it's somewhat expensive at this level.
9	Druid	Exalted Wildshape	Here, we gain access to celestial animals (with all their extraordinary and supernatural qualities).
10	Planar Druid		We get Planar Tolerance here, rendering us immune to naturally occurring environmental effects of specific planes. This is important, as once our immunities ramp up, these may have been some of the only effects able to affect us.
11	Druid
12	Druid	Selective Spell	The feat doesn't do anything spectacular immediately, . As we hit caster level 11, our humanoid wild shape feat can now be used to take Craft Contingent Spell. This lets us put contingencies on our animal companion and other allies to trigger on whatever conditions we'd like. I can't overstate how powerful this is; it's probably the most effective defense in 3.5 in my opinion. The contingencies are suppressed in an amf, so they won't be as valuable on us, sadly.
13	Druid		We get the ability to take the form of a celestial incorporeal piranha swarm here (one level late). This gets us immunity to most standard attack forms in the game, and while it is a large power leap, a bigger one comes soon. With our Voice of the City ACF, we now have about a +15 or higher to communicate to those we can't speak with, and it's a DC20, so we'll hit that most of the time.
14	Contemplative		We go straight into the magic domain, granting us antimagic field, and so get access to the capstone immunities two levels earlier than our full-casting version. We could use the spell domain instead (to get access to goodies like anyspell and limited wish), but they delays Antimagic Field until 8th level. Technically, we can still extend/select/persist Limited Wish emulating AMF, but that's at 1 level higher (and so we'd have to wait until 16HD to use it). The magic domain also lets us use magic items as a sorcerer or wizard, giving us access to all sorts of wands. We can persist the AMF immediately, too, putting us fully online. Ideally, as we've literally talked to Mystra, we should be friends with at least one other high-level Initiate of Mystra who can use their Greater Anyspell to permanency Reduce Person on us, granting us immunity to weapon damage when we wild shape into a swarm. If not, our contingencies should still protect from the narrow situations of riverine/seren uberchargers as well as it protects from Initiates of Mystra.
15	Holt Warden	Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion)	We get an actual domain slot for our antimagic field! And our other domain spells, of course.
16	Divine Oracle		At this level, we can use an 8th level slot to persist and extend a selective AMF, reducing the frequency with which we must cast it to once every two days. We also get access to the Oracle domain, granting us a ton of ability to gather information for quests and to predict the challenges we'll face in the day. We should now know if we will be facing any issues with riverine, seren, or antimagic that day.
17	Divine Oracle		Evasion will help us in the event that an Initiate of Mystra includes us in the AoE of one of their spells, and that our contingent spells and SR were somehow unable to protect us from.
18	Divine Oracle	Fell Conspiracy	At this level, we get a neat combo. We can persist Foresight on an ally or our animal companion, giving us warnings about the creature. We are never surprised or flat-footed, so our allies are never flat-footed either, as per the Fell Conspiracy feat. Additionally, we can communicate the warnings we receive to our ally before the danger occurs. The spell should also tell us a general idea of what action we might take to best protect our self, effectively preventing any one-shot ubercharger or surprise Initiate of Mystra shenanigans that somehow bypassed both our enhanced divinations for the day and our contingent spells. We also get telepathy and some other buffs for us and our party.
19	Divine Oracle
20	Divine Oracle		We're halfway to epic progression! Unlike other builds which might suffer in the absence of immediately ramping up to epic feats, the survivability this build offers makes it a viable consideration to level to 25 against epic enemies, at which point we, too, can start taking epic feats and join the game of rocket tag instead of pillow forting our way through the crossfire.

[Elves]

I try to avoid Dragon if I can most of the time.

Don't have time to read thread atm but I think this view is worth dropping. Dragon is official content, even says so on the cover.

I think the stigma against it came from when there was an assumption of physical book possession, and most people wouldn't have these magazines. But now they're at everyone's fingertips. For example you can legally borrow and download them all from the Internet Archive.


Because I don't have time to do more than skim, can you clarify for me: is this build assuming LA buyoff for telthor?

[Doctor Despair]

Don't have time to read thread atm but I think this view is worth dropping. Dragon is official content, even says so on the cover.

I think the stigma against it came from when there was an assumption of physical book possession, and most people wouldn't have these magazines. But now they're at everyone's fingertips. For example you can legally borrow and download them all from the Internet Archive.

Essentually, my forever DM doesn't like Dragon, the build competitions here don't like Dragon, half the people on the forum don't seem to like to use it, and although this last one could be rectified supremely easily, I can never recall exactly which editions were 1st party (made by WotC) and which were "1st party" (made by others, approved by WotC). I've used it in builds in the past, I think it's definitely worthy of inclusion in discussion, and I often look to it when there is an absence of non-Dragon 1st-party content, but for those reasons I shy away from including it in my builds if I can help it.

Because I don't have time to do more than skim, can you clarify for me: is this build assuming LA buyoff for telthor?

I don't blame you; it's a lot to catch up on if you don't have a free moment. The build is assuming it, as it's a common enough variant rule and my DM uses it, but it hits 9ths pre-epic without level-buy off, too.

[Jack_Simth]

It is a valid point, but one we thankfully can circumvent, I believe.

Oh yes. There's plenty of workarounds. But when a build has a feat in a slot where the listed path doesn't qualify for the feat, it needs mention how that comes to be. Among other things, not all DM's cotton to the idea of shuffling feats around like that.

[Doctor Despair]

You know, between Jack's comment on how the collated build notes needed to be cleaner/more clear, and Elves' comments on the length, I think it's time for a condensed write-up of what the build's become. I've put together notes on what we've discussed and come up with so far. Any feedback before I update the OP would be very much appreciated. :)

---

"All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity."

Since the dawn of man, humans have made every effort to stave off death as long as possible. A microcosm of this primal, intrinsic urge to survive is reflected in our tabletop games through both the Ikea Terrasque and, later, the Emerald Legion. After some efforts, I think I've developed a step forward for the immortality-enthusiasts among us. I present for the consideration of the forum the results of much research, brainstorming, and discussion: the Swarmshaper.

Spoiler: Background

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For our character, we begin with a middle-aged Rashemi human as the base. Using 32-point buy and applying age penalties, we can end up with 7 in each of our physical stats, 16 int and cha, and 19 wis. We take our first class level as a Cloistered Cleric (Unearthed Arcana) of Mystra, taking the Knowledge, Spell, and Good domains, and trading away Knowledge and Good for their respective devotion feats (Complete Champion). We take Practiced Spellcaster (Complete Arcane) and Extend Spell (PHB) as our level 1 feats. Then, defending the land from some threat, we perish.

We rise as a Telthor (UE, LA+2), eliminating our strength score. As the Fey spirit of a fallen cleric, we should be effectively immortal (read: unageing, as our character is curre tly dead), so our character should be able to wait an indeterminable amount of time before we hear the Platinum Dragon's call to protect the world from the spawn of Tiamat. Using our ECL WBL, we apply the Dragonborn of Bahamut template, stripping away our human traits and Telthor qualities, but leaving us with the incorporeal subtype. This means we lose our racial feat and skill points. As per the mechanics of rebirth, we sacrifice our Good Devotion feat in lieu of either of our general feats. We sacrifice the skill points we used to put ranks in Spellcraft, causing us to fail to meet the prerequisites of the feat, and allowing us to immediately select a replacement feat. In this case, we select Ghostly Grasp, allowing us to interact with the world, as well as acquire and use gear as a normal character. We take the Heart aspect with the Dragonborn template, allowing us to deal damage without finding riverine, burning spell slots, or using large amounts of arrows/bolts (as the ammunition would become corporeal after we fired it).

In terms of RP, the neutral good or true neutral character is devoted to Mystra and fighting the spawn of Tiamat wherever they appear. The build is functionally playable from ECL3, although technically, as the other templates are acquired, you could start play at ECL 1 if your DM will work with you on acquiring them during gameplay.

Spoiler: Strengths: Our Layers of Immortality

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The first layer of our immortality comes as a result of the Telthor template. While becoming functionally ageless, we also gain incorporeality, which provides immunity to all mundane attacks save for those made by seren wood or riverine. We also no longer need to breathe, eat, or drink.

The second layer of our immortality comes by means of applying an all-day selective antimagic field (see mechanics). This suppresses nearly all (see weaknesses) magical qualities for weapons, rendering them effectively mundane. It also suppresses nearly all (see weaknesses) spells, supernatural abilities, and other magical effects that might be used against us, leaving us vulnerable primarily to instantaneous conjurations used to attack us. Our incorporeal subtype grants us a 50% chance to ignore damage from a corporeal spell, but even so, there is metamagic to negate that.

The third layer of our immortality comes via gaining swarm traits through wild shape (see mechanics). Among all a swarm's sundry resistances and immunities is an immunity to any spell or effect that targets one or more creatures. This precludes a caster from sending targeted instantaneous conjurations against us; the antimagic field suppresses everything else. Because the field is selective, it doesn't suppress the wild shape. Through an optimization trick, we can also ensure we qualify as a diminutive swarm, gaining immunity to weapon damage (and rendering seren and riverine weapons useless against us).

As a result, we are functionally immune to nearly any means to attack us save for a few key weaknesses that we address.

Spoiler: Weaknesses: How Do We Address Them?

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Much of what can bypass this build is generally subject to DM fiat, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for it. There are a few key weaknesses our three layers of immortality leave unaddressed, but we do have the means to answer them.

Spoiler: Deities, Demigods, and DM Intervention

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"Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as [Antimagic Field]. As a result of this, a creature carrying an artifact which either deals magical splash energy damage, or which casts an AoE spell could potentially deal damage to us. Likewise, creatures with divine ranks are unaffected by our AMF, and their abilities should arguably function normally. Neither of these are achievable except via DM fiat, and even within those boundaries, we are still somewhat protected by our swarm and incorporeal traits. Additionally, we can pick up the fire subtype from Mantle of the Fiery Spirit for fire immunity, and we will have the celestial template (see mechanics), granting us SR and energy resistance. Lastly, we can pick up Craft Contingent Spell (see bottom) to throw up instant defenses.

Spoiler: Epic Spells

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Epic spells can potentially bypass an antimagic field. These shouldn't be online for opponents until at least level 21, but even in that case, our incorporeal traits, swarm traits, and spell resistance will protect us to an extent. AoE epic spells (particularly those that do not deal damage, or that which are cast by an incorporeal creature, and particularly those which do not offer SR) will be particularly dangerous to us, and which we can only really answer thanks to our key defense: Craft Contingent Spell (see bottom).

Spoiler: Winking Out

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One possible challenge to us is the interaction between non-undead incorporeal creatures and antimagic fields. The original AMF spell makes no mention of this type of creature. However, the Rules Compendium elaborates that "Summoned creatures of any type disappear if they enter an antimagic area. Incorporeal creatures do the same." This could refer to summoned incorporeal creatures (merely clarifying that incorporeal creatures are also affected under the "summoned creatures" clause), but arguably it would affect all incorporeal creatures. However, even under this reading, such a creature should not wink out unless they entered the field. Moving the antimagic field on top of such a creature should not cause it to wink out, as the field would be entering their space rather than the other way around. While winking out isn't necessarily a detriment to us (depending on where, precisely, we would wink out to, of course, and assuming we can't plane shift back), it definitely isn't positive to lose that action economy.

In the event that a DM rules that no, AMFs cause you to wink-out even if they are moved on top of you, we have a few more defenses we can use. First, we can utilize a variation on the classic tinfoil hat. A large metal cone (taking care not to gain an AC bonus from it and cause it to count as armor, thereby disqualifying us from our druid powers) has permanent shrink item cast on it, turning it effectively into a hat of sorts. We put it on, then use wild shape, causing it to meld. Our selective AMF will no longer affect it, as it is melded and has no means for the AMF to get line of effect. When we wink out, however, our items should be left behind, as they are not incorporeal creatures. This means that the hat will appear in our square. The reduce person should be suppressed, causing it to grow into its former cone-shape, blocking line of effect to the enemy AMF. This will cause us to wink back in, and allow us time to cast or escape underground as need be.

Another strategy we can use is to order-of-operations our way out of the line of effect. As a large incorporeal creature, we can choose to have half our squares underground. When the enemy AMF overlaps us, in addition to causing us to "wink out," it will suppress our wild shape, causing us to return to our medium size. Both should happen simultaneously, and it is important that the latter happens with 100% certainty. It should be our discretion which square we shrink into. If we choose our underground square, the enemy AMF will lose line of effect to us, causing us to wink back into existence - still underground. Our wild shape will no longer be suppressed, and we should be able to choose the squares we grow into -- this time selecting to grow downward instead. Thus, we should never be subject to an enemy AMF if we don't choose to be. If the DM rules that winking out occurs before the wild shape suppression, then when our wild shape ends in X hours, we get to make that selection again, breaking line of effect so long as they didn't dig out the 10x10 area underneath the squares we occupied above ground.

Before the enemy even reaches us to trigger our response mechanism, however, our Craft Contingent Spell feat (see bottom) should allow us to put a contingent spell on our party members or, to be self-sufficient, our animal companion, casting Wall of Stone immediately before an AMF would overlap with our own AMF. The wall should encase us entirely (as we voluntarily fail our save), blocking this AMF-charger from reaching us in the first place.

Spoiler: AMF-Users Running Into Melee

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An AMF would suppress our wild shape, leaving us vulnerable to an AMF-enchanted angry man with a riverine sword ubercharging their way towards us. Fortunately, some of the above defenses will help us here. If the DM rules that the enemy AMF doesn't cause us to wink out, our tinfoil hat (see Winking Out) will still come into play when the enemy ubercharges their way towards us, breaking line of effect from their AMF and their attacks. If they can break through the hat and get line of effect to us, they will suppress our wild shape, allowing us to vanish underground as we shrink to medium size, as described above. As above, Craft Contingent Spell (see bottom) spells placed on our party members or animal companion can help shore up our defenses here too.

Spoiler: Mage's Disjunction

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Mage's Disjunction is always a tricky spell to adjudicate in TO discussion. Hypothetically, any character can purchase a component pouch with NI costless artifacts to use as components. Mage's Disjunction would then be a suicide attempt, as it would guarantee the caster fails the will save, destroys NI artifacts, and attracts the attention of NI powerful beings interested in the artifacts. Setting aside that ridiculousness, we can collect artifacts to simulate this effect to an extent.

To prevent the Disjunction from happening in the first place, we can craft a bunch of contingent (see bottom) Greater Dispel Magics to counter a Disjunction used against us; we need only keep them on someone other than us. More reliably, a contingent Wall of Stone should be able to block line of effect from the Disjunction, foiling it with no need for a dispel check. However, let's assume they were able to bypass those somehow.

Let's assume we have no artifacts and the Disjunction successfully destroys the AMF. The Disjunction lacks line of effect to our items (which are melded), but arguably it might affect our contingent spells, as that gear is not worn or carried. It certainly could remove our Reduce Person. We have a decent will save to protect those spells as a full wisdom-based caster. If any of those spells survive, we could have a powerful retort the moment they are unsuppressed.

One last defense we could use for relatively cheap or free is to take advantage of the fact that the AMF seems to need to be destroyed first before items can be affected. We can carry a cheap bag of holding with us in our AMF, then place it inside another suppressed bag of holding or portable hole. When suppressed, there would be no significant effect. However, when the AMF is destroyed, and the items make their will save, they will become magical items again, and thus trigger the bag of holding's native effect, tearing a hole into the Astral Plane and dragging us into it. It is an inconvenience to be forced to emergency plane shift in this manner, but it's probably safer than the situation we're in if someone is trying to Disjoin us.

Assuming the spells are all destroyed, and the DM rules the bag of holding emergency escape technique doesn't function for some reason... we are still a celestial incorporeal swarm, and enjoy a vast number of immunities as a result of that.

Spoiler: Initiates of Mystra

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We are a cleric of Mystra who, to qualify for Contemplative, needs to have had a long heart-to-heart chat with Mystra. We have an Exalted feat, and so must remain a paragon of virtue. Mystra is a neutral good deity. It stretches credulity that we would ever encounter an Initiate of Mystra who was aggressive or antagonistic towards us, as they would certainly be breaking their code and falling as a result, and yet the chance is not 0. Indeed, a fallen cross-class Initiate of Mystra would still technically retain their prerequisites for the feat, even as they lack any other cleric class features, and so would still be able to affect us with spells in our AMF providing they were standing in their own AMF when they cast them.

Against such a cleric, we have some defenses. For example, we still have our spell resistance, and our immunity to targeted spells. We aren't reliant on any long-term spell-based buffs save for our permanent Reduce Person (which they could technically try to area greater dispel to leave us vulnerable to situational weapon damage, I suppose). This means the cross-class-fallen cleric would need to rely on AoE spells, and we have some built-in defenses against those. Our incorporeal type grants us a 50% chance to ignore damaging AoE spells from a corporeal source. Divine Oracle grants us Evasion, letting us entirely avoid such an AoE on a successful reflex save. We also have spell resistance equal to HD+5 to help block some effects, and this cleric has dropped at least 3 caster levels in their pursuit of this conflict. Of course, these are assuming the fallen cleric is able to bypass the spells placed with our Craft Contingent Spell feat (see bottom).

Spoiler: Special Notice: Craft Contingent Spell

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Crafted contingent spells are magic items, and thus would be suppressed in our antimagic field. However, we need not place them on ourselves. We can place them on our allies. This leaves us as much versatility as our ingenuity and forethought will allow. At its base usefulness, a contingent Wall of Stone placed on our animal companion and set to encase us in a hemispherical dome upon the appearance of specified threats would block line of effect, and most offensive techniques require line of effect. However, this feat will only become more useful with the addition of divination. The Divine Oracle prestige class offers access to the Oracle domain, and the power of Commune and friends cannot be overstated when it comes to determining what contingent spells will be necessary for the day. The combination of these two feats should allow us to effectively shore up any holes in our defense as they appear.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Spoiler: How Does Selective Spell Work?

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Selective AMF should allow us to retain/use our supernatural abilities and cast spells, but our spell effects would still have to follow the normal rules for AMFs apart from the casting (e.g., we can only affect those in our AMF with an instantaneous conjuration). There's some explanation here as to why this would be the case, courtesy of Anthrowhale. This means we should be able to benefit from our wild shape while otherwise benefiting from the protection of an AMF. Wild Shape, as a supernatural ability, is therefore unique among many shape-changing techniques to gain extraordinary qualities, save for those granted by shape-changing spells cast by Initiates of Mystra.

Spoiler: How Do You Get AMF All Day?

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An all-day antimagic field is achievable using an old standby: Divine Metamagic (CD) and Persistent Spell (CA). We use our 6 uses of turn undead from our Cleric level and freely persist our antimagic field, giving us an all-day Selective AMF from a level 7 slot. If we extend it as well, arguably the spell should last 48 hours out of a level 8 slot. As DMM becomes functionally useless after we do this, it is beneficial for us to use Enhance Wild Shape / Fangshield Druid 7's humanoid wild shape to wild shape into a human, gain the human racial bonus feat (selecting DMM: Persist), apply our AMF, and then wild shape away.

Spoiler: How Do You Get Swarm Traits?

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There are two methods in 3.5 that allow you to unambiguously use wild shape to become a swarm:

• City-Shape Druid

Spoiler: Feature

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City-Shape

The ability to transform into an animal is the hallmark of the druid, so much so that even many urban druids choose to retain it. Some, however, prefer the ability to blend and maneuver within the streets of the city, sacrificing size for a wider range of forms.

Class: Druid.

Level: 5th.

Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain all the aspects of standard wild shape (except for the ability to wild shape into an elemental at high levels, which remains unchanged).

Benefit: At 5th level, the druid gains the ability to transform into an animal, as per the standard wild shape ability. She can do this once a day to start with, but the frequency of her wild shapes increases as per the standard druid advancement chart.

At 8th level, the druid does not gain the ability to transform into Large animals. Instead, she may transform into Small and Medium vermin, as well as animals.

At 11th level, the druid gains the ability to transform into Tiny animals and vermin.

At 12th level, the druid does not gain the ability to transform into plant creatures. Instead, she may transform into an animal- or vermin-based swarm, so long as it fits within her standard wild shaping Hit Die limits.

At 15th level, the druid does not gain the ability to transform into Huge animals. Instead, she gains the ability to transform into Large animals and vermin.

Special: The Natural Spell feat functions with city-shape just as it does standard wild shape.

• Vermin Keeper (Underdark)

Spoiler: Feature

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Swarm Form (Su): At 10th level, a vermin keeper can use his wild shape to assume the form of any vermin swarm (any swarm whose constituent creatures are of the vermin type).

When you become a swarm, however, unintuitively, you don't necessarily gain swarm traits. Swarm is a subtype, and wild shape stipulates that you don't gain the type or subtype of the form you assume. There are, however, four swarms that explicitly have swarm traits as Ex abilities:

• Bloodbloater (Fiend Folio p.16)]Medium-Size Ooze (Aquatic, Swarm of Diminutive Creatures)
• Jellyfish Swarm (Stormwrack p.161)]Diminutive Vermin (Aquatic, Swarm)
• Leech Swarm (Stormwrack p.162)]Fine Vermin (Aquatic, Swarm)
• Piranha Swarm (Stormwrack p.162)]Tiny Animal (Aquatic, Swarm)

There are fortunately a few ways that allow us to gain extraordinary qualities from our wild shape forms:

• Master of Many Forms 7 (Complete Adventurer, PrC)
• Enhance Wild Shape (Spell Compendium, Spell)
• Exalted Wild Shape (Book of Exalted Deeds, Feat)

Of these three, Exalted Wild Shape seems optimal, although it requires us to use the piranha swarm. Enhance Wild Shape would be suppressed by our AMF, and MoMF 7 involves dropping 7 caster levels. EWS also grants the celestial template, which conveys a bunch of goodies for us.

Spoiler: How Do You Make the Piranha Swarm Diminutive?

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Initiates of Mystra can cast spells that function normally in AMFs, and they can access any sorc/wiz spell of level 5 or lower using Anyspell and Greater Anyspell. If we can pay one of our friends in the clergy of Mystra to cast Permanency and Reduce Person on us while we are humanoid (qualifying using Human Heritage as our floating human racial feat from Fangshield Druid 7), then we should permanently be affected by it, even in an AMF.

There is no mechanism to remove the spell's effect if our type changes, nor if we change shape, as it is permanent. This should mean that, when we wild shape into a medium form, we would be rendered small by the spell; likewise, if we wild shape into a tiny form (such as the piranha swarm), we would be rendered diminutive by the spell. Diminutive swarms are immune to weapon damage, so this is strictly to our advantage.

Spoiler: How Exactly Do These "Floating Feats" Work?

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Fangshield Druid 7 offers, in exchange for one use of wild shape per day, the ability to use wild shape to take on humanoid forms. Among the ex qualities a human (or Strongheart Halfling) gets is their racial general feat. By using Enhance Wild Shape, we can gain that ex quality and use it to craft contingent spells, have reduce persons cast on us, or any other miscellaneous task we need a feat slot for, then wild shape into something more potent (such as our swarm form) at our leisure.

Spoiler: How Do You Do Normal Things Like Talk or Open Doors?

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Ghostly Grasp lets us manipulate physical objects as if we were corporeal. Fangshield Druid 5 lets us form hands when we wild shape. The combination of the two means we should never have to worry about manipulating objects while in wild shape. Just don't ask what a swarm with hands looks like...

Spoiler: You've gotta hand it to them...

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With regard to speech, the Voice of the City ACF available at Druid 1 should actually cover it. We can already understand all the languages we know, but with a DC 20 charisma check and this ACF, we can communicate even if we can't speak the language of the person we're talking to (such as if we are wild shaped into a swarm form). Eventually, Fell Conspiracy (Exemplars of Evil) will allow us telepathy with our party to circumvent the need for these checks, but this ACF will help us in the meantime.

Spoiler: 1 - 20 Build; Online All-Day from Level 14.

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HD	Class	Feat	Note
1	Cloistered Cleric	Ghostly Grasp, Extend Spell, Knowledge Devotion (religion)	At this level, we have our spellcasting and our supernatural breath weapon to contribute in combat. We can still pick up and use items and equipment to a limited extent with Ghostly Grasp; notably, even if we can't find any seren or riverine to attack with, any corporeal ranged weapon and ammunition we pick up can be used normally, as the ammunition becomes corporeal after we fire it.
2	Druid (Voice of the City)		The addition of an animal companion doubles our value in combat, and the extra spell slots double our heals and utility.
3	Druid	Persistent Spell	We can't actually apply this metamagic to anything yet, but this is the easiest place to fit the feat.
4	Druid (Go to Ground)		We get immunity to Urban Tracking instead of regular Track. As an incorporeal creature, it's essentially impossible to track us anyway, so this is a strict upgrade.
5	Druid (Iron Constitution)	Strong Stomach
6	Fangshield Druid	Natural Spell	At this level, if LA buyoff is in play, we can reduce our LA by 1 and reduce our ECL from 8 to 7. Natural Spell is a must for obvious reasons.
7	Druid
8	Fangshield Druid		Here we get Humanoid Wildshape, which is... huge. This lets us get a human racial bonus feat, for which we will select DMM: Persistent Spell. We can persist our spell for the day, using up our turn undeads, and then wild shape into something more serviceable at our leisure. We only gain the feat if we use Enhance Wild Shape though, and we don't have unlimited 4th level slots, so it's somewhat expensive at this level.
9	Druid	Exalted Wildshape	Here, with LA buyoff in play, we can buy off our last LA, finally setting out ECL to our HD. We also gain access to celestial animals (with all their extraordinary and supernatural qualities). Feel free to take this opportunity to book-dive for small and medium animals with interesting qualities to cherry pick, as we only have a few levels to play with them before we start living in swarm form.
10	Planar Druid		We get Planar Tolerance here, rendering us immune to naturally occurring environmental effects of specific planes. This is important, as once our immunities ramp up, these may have been some of the only effects able to affect us. Things like the save against damage from overhealing on the positive energy plane are very difficult to circumvent without an ability like this.
11	Druid
12	Druid	Selective Spell	The feat doesn't do anything spectacular immediately, but it will soon. As we hit caster level 11, our humanoid wild shape feat can now be used to take Craft Contingent Spell. This lets us put contingencies on our animal companion and other allies to trigger on whatever conditions we'd like. I can't overstate how powerful this is; it's probably the most effective defense in 3.5. The contingencies are suppressed in an amf, so they won't be as valuable on us soon, sadly.
13	Druid		We get the ability to take the form of a celestial incorporeal piranha swarm here (one level late). This gets us immunity to many attack forms in the game, and while it is a large power leap, a bigger one comes soon. With our Voice of the City ACF, we now have about a +15 or higher to communicate to those we can't speak with, and it's a DC20, so we'll hit that most of the time.
14	Contemplative		We gain access to the magic domain, granting us antimagic field (and the ability to use magic items as a sorcerer or wizard, giving us access to all sorts of wands). We can persist the AMF immediately, too, putting us fully online. Ideally, as we've literally talked to Mystra, we should be friends with at least one other high-level Initiate of Mystra who can use their Greater Anyspell to permanency Reduce Person on us, granting us immunity to weapon damage when we wild shape into a swarm.
15	Holt Warden	Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion)	Holt Warden delays our entry to Divine Oracle, but it grants actual domain slots for our domain spells. Getting effectively a bonus druid spell at every level seems like a worthwhile class feature in my book.
16	Divine Oracle		At this level, we can use an 8th level slot to persist and extend a selective AMF, reducing the frequency with which we must cast it to once every two days. We also get access to the Oracle domain, granting us a ton of ability to gather information for quests and to predict the challenges we'll face in the day. We should now know if we will be facing any issues with riverine, seren, or antimagic that day.
17	Divine Oracle		Evasion will help us in the event that an Initiate of Mystra includes us in the AoE of one of their spells, and that our contingent spells and SR were somehow unable to protect us from.
18	Divine Oracle	Fell Conspiracy	At this level, we get access to 9ths, and a neat combo. We can persist Foresight on an ally or our animal companion, giving us warnings about the creature. We are never surprised or flat-footed, so our allies are never flat-footed either, as per the Fell Conspiracy feat. Additionally, we can communicate the warnings we receive to our ally before the danger occurs. The spell should also tell us a general idea of what action we might take to best protect our self, effectively preventing any one-shot ubercharger or surprise Initiate of Mystra shenanigans that somehow bypassed both our enhanced divinations for the day and our contingent spells. We also get telepathy and some other buffs for us and our party; message at-will and significant buffs to listen/spot for each party member should help ensure the party doesn't get caught on the wrong end of a surprise round.
19	Divine Oracle
20	Divine Oracle		We're halfway to epic progression! Unlike other builds which might suffer in the absence of immediately ramping up to epic feats, the survivability this build offers makes it a viable addition to a party facing epic enemies on the way to level 25, at which point we, too, can join the game of epic feat-based rocket tag.

Thank you so much for reading! In the pattern of the Ikea Terrasque and Emerald Legion threads, I'd like to follow up with some questions:

1. What are your general thoughts or feedback on the build?
2. Can you offer any suggestions with regard to useful feats to pick up temporarily with human wild shape at the start of the adventuring day?
3. Can you offer any suggestions for a superior feat option at level 18?
4. Can you think of any better way to defend against an Initiate of Mystra or a Disjunction?
5. Is there any gear or ways to spend WBL that you can think of that would be particularly helpful? Gear melds, and the AMF suppresses a lot of things, so I was struggling to think of useful items apart from blowing all our WBL on Savage Species subtype-granting rituals for more immunities.
6. Are there any weaknesses you can think of that I've failed to identify or address?

[Anthrowhale]

In terms of defense against Disjunction, can you layer Selective AMFs?

Having and using an animal companion seems like a liability to me, since you inherently give up on stealth. Stealth is an important defense.

In terms of the level 18 feat, taking two levels of cleric at L17 & L18 to qualify for Initiate of Mystra is tempting. You'll delay your Druid 9s, but the ability to have spells in effect inside of the AMF is pretty appealing.

[ShurikVch]

Some dubious moments - no offense, I'm genuinely puzzled there

1) Are you sure Dragonborn should remove Bound to the Land? After all, it's not a racial trait... (Otherwise - wouldn't it remove your spellcasting and Turn Undead too?)

2) All of your example swarms are aquatic. How's your Swarm Shaper in a non-aquatic environment?

3) How do you cast spells? (And don't give me "Natural Spell!" - "For example, while in the form of a hawk, you could substitute screeches and gestures with your talons for the normal verbal and somatic components of a spell" Fish/leeches substitutes... what?.. )

3) "How Do You Make the Piranha Swarm Diminutive?": Shape-shifting effects don't work like that - if you cast Reduce Person on yourself, and then turn into Troll - it still would be Large Giant - not Medium-sized. Moreover - because our supposed creature is a Swarm, things get much more tricky there. (For example: when I asked on this forum how size change should work for a swarm - for my "Tauric Swarm" exercise - I got such answers as "I have no idea" and "It doesn't")


Anyway, there are still two possible methods of attack - even if all works as you intended:
Red Dragon Bloodline with Breath of Unlife feat (Dragons of Faerûn) - half of damage is Negative Energy (which don't miss Incorporeal creatures), and, since Breath Weapon is (Ex), it wouldn't be stopped by AMF
Blunderbuss (Dragon #321) shoots cone AoE of 1d6 piercing damage; apply Ghostoil (Libris Mortis) - and it would shoot Incorporeals (with X1.5 damage!)

[Doctor Despair]

In terms of defense against Disjunction, can you layer Selective AMFs?

We only get one domain spell at each level; even with infinite turn undeads, we can only do 3 each day, or as many as 5 if we also extend the ones in our level 8 and 9 domain slots. With that said, we don't have infinite turn undeads without nightstick stacking, but with some wishes, a night stick, and some charisma items, we can probably achieve that 5, although it requires the DM to rule that we use the extra turns from our items first, as they'd be suppressed by the first AMF we cast. I'm not sure that's actually RAW though.

It would divide the risk of Disjunction by the number of AMFs we have though, which is nice. Even if they somehow bypass all the AMFs, they'd still have to bypass our emergency bag of holding escape trick.

Having and using an animal companion seems like a liability to me, since you inherently give up on stealth. Stealth is an important defense.

I'm not sure this is true. Yes, it harms our stealthiness, depending on the companion we select, but it allows us to have crafted contingent spells, and those are our most effective answer to threatening situations. Even with Initiate of Mystra, crafted contingent spells are items, and so would be suppressed by an AMF. We need an allied creature nearby to carry all our contingencies.

For what it's worth, though, you are right that one of the biggest strengths of the incorporeal subtype is the ability to fly silently underground, immune to almost all detection modes. Here's a thought: suppose we gain a familiar via Urban Companion, and improve on it with Celestial Familiar, we can take a Coure which can become incorporeal at will. In addition to being thematic, Celestial Familiar is only needed when we summon the Familiar (and in fact, casters don't qualify for it unless they have the ability to acquire a new familiar, so they lose the benefits except when they summon one). This means we can summon it with our human racial bonus feat, then wild shape to something else. An incorporeal familiar can carry our spells, then hide underground when needed.

The Coure requires a chaotic good alignment, incompatible with being a Druid. A Musteval requires neutral good, and they get a burrow speed; Quasits and Imps get invisibility at will. A Pseudodragon doesn't have either of those, but is has a +20 to hide (or a +24 in forested areas), and has telepathy to translate for us (or help us communicate silently while we are being stealthy).

In terms of the level 18 feat, taking two levels of cleric at L17 & L18 to qualify for Initiate of Mystra is tempting. You'll delay your Druid 9s, but the ability to have spells in effect inside of the AMF is pretty appealing.

I agree that Initiate of Mystra is tempting, but I'm not sure it actually improves our defenses. Since it doesn't help defensively, it would need to help enough offensively to justify dropping two caster levels and delaying 9ths by two levels. Are there any spells you feel would be particularly valuable? Foresight might be a good one off the top of my head, although we can have some of the benefits from putting it on an ally.

Edit: Sorry for the delayed response, Shurik. I did the above response while on my lunch break at work, and finished it right at the end. Of course, as they were posted simultaneously, I only saw your response when my post submitted and had no time to answer it.

1) Are you sure Dragonborn should remove Bound to the Land? After all, it's not a racial trait... (Otherwise - wouldn't it remove your spellcasting and Turn Undead too?)

My gut reaction was to reject the idea that templates wouldn't obviously be racial, but it's a fair question, and one I had to search a while to find RAW details on. What type of abilities do templates grant? If not racial, they certainly aren't class based, and as far as I know there was never a "template features" term coined. With certainty, we can say that they grant special qualities (which are non-offensive special abilities, as per MM pg 6), and that helps us a little bit.

Savage Species pg 7 informs us that, when building a monster character, special abilities are either racial features or class features. This can be imagined in-universe more accurately when you consider how that text describes how templates alter the base creature (112), defined in the book as the average version of a kind of monster before any modifications (5), rather than just granting abilities to a creature that are unrelated to the base creature.

For me, however, most compelling is the evidence that comes from page 8 of Races of the Dragon in the Dragonborn entry itself. The Dragonborn of Bahamut template explicitly confers racial traits, showing that, in the context of the template at least, templates confer racial traits. Class features, on the other hand, are not racial traits, so we wouldn't lose spellcasting or Turn Undead.

2) All of your example swarms are aquatic. How's your Swarm Shaper in a non-aquatic environment?

This one is much easier. We are incorporeal. We do not breath, so we do not need to remain in the water.

With regard to movement... The SRD description on Incorporeality, and the Special Abilities section, describes how "[Incorporeal creatures] move in any direction (including up or down) at will." The more I search for it in texts like the MMIII, Libris Mortis, Rules Compendium, etc, the more it looks like they stole the line from Etherealness.

With that said, incorporeality does include this detail: "Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air." While this seems to be intended to allow an incorporeal creature to use their land or fly speed in the water, it should follow that they can use their swim speed in the air, too, since they are as easy as each other. We are fortunate it didn't say "[They] can walk or fly in water as easily as they do in air."

3) How do you cast spells? (And don't give me "Natural Spell!" - "For example, while in the form of a hawk, you could substitute screeches and gestures with your talons for the normal verbal and somatic components of a spell" Fish/leeches substitutes... what?.. )

I'm sorry that the flavor disappoints you, but it is quite literally Natural Spell. We are in wild shape; Natural Spell lets you complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape. Full stop. We can fluff it as clacking teeth, burbling/smacking lips, and waggling fins, but it's there. With regard to the fins, at least, we do have simple dexterous hands, even when in swarm form, as a result of Fangshield Druid 7. Does one piranha have the hands? Are they split between two piranhas? Do all the piranhas form the hands together out of a writhing mass of their bodies? It's up to the reader's imagination.

3) "How Do You Make the Piranha Swarm Diminutive?": Shape-shifting effects don't work like that - if you cast Reduce Person on yourself, and then turn into Troll - it still would be Large Giant - not Medium-sized.

So far as I can tell, that isn't the RAW of the situation. When you are humanoid, you are an eligible target for Reduce Person. When you stop being humanoid, there is no mechanism to dispel or suppress the reduction. Your size is changed constantly by this effect, as it has a listed duration (permanent) instead of instantaneous. When you wild shape, you change your form, but this effect is still active as per the duration, reducing your size, even when you change the shape you are in. The effects are distinct (shrinking you and changing your shape), so it doesn't seem like one would render the other irrelevant. Do you have a rules citation regarding the interaction between the two being a nombo?

With that said: losing that would render us vulnerable to serren ammunition, riverine, artifact weapons, and weapons coated in ghostoil. We still have contingent spells to block such attacks, however, and DR/10 effective against all much the artifact weapons, take half such damage, and have a 50% chance to ignore any such damage.

Moreover - because our supposed creature is a Swarm, things get much more tricky there. (For example: when I asked on this forum how size change should work for a swarm - for my "Tauric Swarm" exercise - I got such answers as "I have no idea" and "It doesn't")

As above: we have the form of a swarm, and we have swarm traits, but we do not have the swarm subtype for what that's worth. I don't think "they don't interact" is a valid interpretation. If you were enlarged or reduced, you'd still take up a 10x10 cube as your area, as that's a property of swarms, and your constituent creatures would be larger or smaller.

Anyway, there are still two possible methods of attack - even if all works as you intended:
Red Dragon Bloodline with Breath of Unlife feat (Dragons of Faerûn) - half of damage is Negative Energy (which don't miss Incorporeal creatures), and, since Breath Weapon is (Ex), it wouldn't be stopped by AMF
Blunderbuss (Dragon #321) shoots cone AoE of 1d6 piercing damage; apply Ghostoil (Libris Mortis) - and it would shoot Incorporeals (with X1.5 damage!)

The breath attack, while it would ignore the 50% miss chance, would actually fail to even make it to the miss chance, as it is extraordinary. Incorporeal creatures are immune to all nonmagical attack forms unless there's some special exception. A special exception is made for magic or magic weapons, wherein an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore that damage; negative energy ignores that miss chance, but it's only entitled to bypass the immunity if it is magic or produced by a magic weapon. If it is magic, however, it is suppressed by the AMF.

The Blunderbuss is Dragon, which I'm not as concerned about, but I'll address it regardless. If we are a diminutive swarm, we are immune to weapon damage, even if it is an AOE. If we aren't immune to it, but we have evasion, and considerint it's a full-round action to apply the oil to the ammunition for one shot (and the oil only retains effectiveness for 2 rounds), I'm not certain it's something we need to seriously worry about. It is a good find though, and should be noted alongside seren and riverine weapons among the weaknesses addressed by Craft Contingent Spell.

Edit2: So I was reflecting for a bit, and I think that while the RAW of it might be disputable, it's best to avoid that disputable reading. There is a build path that avoids the issue entirely, but it requires us to change our race to Strongheart Halfling. This allows us access to diminutive forms which, combined with City-Shape Druid, will let us wild shape into a Jellyfish Swarm. We need to rely on Initiate of Mystra for Enhance Wild Shape here, sadly, so we'll need to drop some caster levels... I'll work on a new version soon. Ultimately, it should function more or less as the above build, save that it drops two additional caster levels and therefore delays 9ths longer. In fact, without LA buy-off, it will delay 9ths until the party is 21, but as noted in the stub above with regard to shooting for epic progression at level 25, this build can survive at epic levels fairly well despite delaying access to epic feats.

Edit3: So we could go Cloistered Cleric 1 / Druid 12 / Cloistered Cleric 2 / Contemplative 1 / Holt Warden 1 / Divine Oracle 3, taking Ghostly Grasp (1), Extend Spell (1), Knowledge Devotion (1), Persistent Spell (3), Natural Spell (6), Fell Conspiracy (9), Selective Spell (12), Initiate of Mystra (15), Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion) (18), and use the floating Fangshield Druid feat to summon an improved familiar (read: urban companion), to craft contingent spells, and daily to DMM our AMF. The last four levels are flex slots for classes, but I think that's probably still ideal.

[ShurikVch]

I'm sorry that the flavor disappoints you, but it is quite literally Natural Spell. We are in wild shape; Natural Spell lets you complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape. Full stop.

Fearsome Gaze ACF allow Barbarian to use their Str for Intimidate check; but what if our Barbarian is incorporeal?..
(I know, it's not the best example - they would still get "+0" - but you understand what I mean there?)

So far as I can tell, that isn't the RAW of the situation. When you are humanoid, you are an eligible target for Reduce Person. When you stop being humanoid, there is no mechanism to dispel or suppress the reduction. Your size is changed constantly by this effect, as it has a listed duration (permanent) instead of instantaneous. When you wild shape, you change your form, but this effect is still active as per the duration, reducing your size, even when you change the shape you are in. The effects are distinct (shrinking you and changing your shape), so it doesn't seem like one would render the other irrelevant. Do you have a rules citation regarding the interaction between the two being a nombo?

Alternate Form:

• The creature retains the type and subtype of its original form. It gains the size of its new form. If the new form has the aquatic subtype, the creature gains that subtype as well.

"It gains the size of its new form."
It doesn't matter if you have Reduce Person running - size of Troll is still "Large"
But if your Alternate Form reverts before the Reduce Person run out of time - then it still would work as it should

The breath attack, while it would ignore the 50% miss chance, would actually fail to even make it to the miss chance, as it is extraordinary. Incorporeal creatures are immune to all nonmagical attack forms unless there's some special exception. A special exception is made for magic or magic weapons, wherein an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore that damage; negative energy ignores that miss chance, but it's only entitled to bypass the immunity if it is magic or produced by a magic weapon. If it is magic, however, it is suppressed by the AMF.

Magic Weapon?


Two more moments about the build's weaknesses (even-if-all-works-as-intended):
You mentioned AMF, but forgot about the eye of Beholder?
Swarm:

A weapon with a special ability such as flaming or frost deals its full energy damage with each hit, even if the weapon’s normal damage can’t affect the swarm.

Ghost Touch Weapon is a 3rd-level Cleric spell (Spell Compendium)

[Doctor Despair]

Fearsome Gaze ACF allow Barbarian to use their Str for Intimidate check; but what if our Barbarian is incorporeal?..
(I know, it's not the best example - they would still get "+0" - but you understand what I mean there?)

I think that's a poor comparison, personally, as the Barbarian doesn't have a strength score, but the Druid in this case does have wild shape. Natural Spell says that "you can complete the verbal and somatic components of a spell while in a wild shape." Again, full stop. It doesn't say "You can use your natural screeches and gestures to complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape." That's just an example of what it could look like. You may not like the fluff of it, but that's the text of the feat.

With that said, even swarms are capable of "speech." The text of wild shape reads:

A druid loses her ability to speak while in animal form because she is limited to the sounds that a normal, untrained animal can make, but she can communicate normally with other animals of the same general grouping as her new form.

The druid in a swarm shape can communicate with other swarms (or arguably other fish, or other bugs, or what have you). How do swarms communicate? Or fish? Your guess is as good as mine. However, one thing I know with certainty is that a swarm-shaped druid with Natural Spell can use this communication to complete the verbal components of spells.

Alternate Form:
"It gains the size of its new form."
It doesn't matter if you have Reduce Person running - size of Troll is still "Large"
But if your Alternate Form reverts before the Reduce Person run out of time - then it still would work as it should

I think you may be right. I can't find any rules text stating that a shape-changing effect like alternate form is the same as a size-changing form like enlarge/reduce person; however, I also can't find any rules text stating that it's different either. It's going to be down to DM fiat in that case, so better to use an iron-clad RAW method if one's available. Gruft brought up the idea in another thread, and I was tepid on it, but I couldn't find anything disputing it apart from people stating their opinions definitively, but I'd imagine that's because opinion is mainly what we have to go on there. The Halfling druid ACF lets you take diminutive shapes, at least, so it should enable the Jellyfish swarm.

Magic Weapon?


Two more moments about the build's weaknesses (even-if-all-works-as-intended):
You mentioned AMF, but forgot about the eye of Beholder?
Swarm:

I didn't overlook Magic Weapon or a swarm's weaknesses to energy damage; I explicitly called those out in the weaknesses section. However, you're overlooking this text:

A magic weapon used to attack from inside an antimagic area, or one used to attack a creature inside an antimagic area, gains none of the benefits of its magic properties. Those properties are suppressed because of the weapon's interaction with the antimagic area.

Weapons -- even ranged weapons -- cannot benefit from their magic properties when they attack a creature in an AMF. This prevents archers from laughing at AMF-users with impunity. Honestly, RAI, I'd think the archer should still benefit from their enhancement to attack rolls, as I'd imagine that would be part of aiming, but RAW is clear: they wouldn't even get that. I suppose the fluff is that the enhancement bonus isn't just to entire the arrow flies true; it also ensures the arrow penetrates armor, doesn't get deflected, etc, so it would need to be active the whole way through the attack, not just when it is aimed.

With that said, artifact weapons ignore AMFs. That's an identified weakness. An artifact weapon with splash damage would still deal its normal damage.

On that note, Initiates of Mystra could technically bestow an enhancement bonus using their feat that would "act normally" in an AMF. We would still be immune to the weapon damage, of course, but it's still notable in that they would be able to have that 50% chance to strike. They may as well use ghost oil, riverine, or seren to get that same benefit though. Hypothetically, if there was a spell that granted a weapon splash energy damage, an Initiate of Mystra could use THAT to cause a riverine or seren weapon to deal damage upon breaking AC... However, as before, Initiates of Mystra are a defined weakness to the build that has countermeasures in place to escape and regroup. Combating a fallen Initiate of Mystra requires careful planning, as they can circumvent several of our weaknesses.

Ghost Touch Weapon is a 3rd-level Cleric spell (Spell Compendium)

Ghost Touch Weapon would be similarly suppressed if placed on a weapon and used to attack a character in an AMF unless cast by an Initiate of Mystra, but in the case of ranged weapons, it explicitly doesn't cause the ammunition to be ghost touch as well; it would just help melee weapons.

The addition of the Halfling substitution levels and using the Jellyfish swarm changes things considerably. I'll have to change and update the write-up significantly (not to mention find cool spectral jellyfish art), but I'll also have to add notes on ghostoil, too. That was a good find, Shurik. Add the ghostoil, add the sub levels, change the feat-swapping Dragonborn feat from Precocious Apprentice to Slayer of Dragons, take out the reduce person cheese, adjust the section on Initiate of Mystra dispels (as I liked a defensive strat using Magic Mouth in another thread), add in Urban Companion, add in Improved Familiar and/or Exalted Companion options, add in a note on AMF stacking as a defensive technique against Disjunctions... Yeah, this is going to be an extensive update. At the end of it, I don't think the weaknesses change extensively though (apart from shrinking slightly due to the optimization tweaks). I'll make an edit to this post (if it fits in the character limit) and PM you and Anthro when I have it ready.

[Elves]

Yeah I think ShurikVch is right on the size thing. I think you're right about template traits being racial.

[ShurikVch]

Weapons -- even ranged weapons -- cannot benefit from their magic properties when they attack a creature in an AMF

But reach weapons can - if their wielder is outside of AMF

[Doctor Despair]

But reach weapons can - if their wielder is outside of AMF

The RC has no such provision for reach weapons in my citation. The target is in the AMF, so the weapon doesn't benefit from its magic

Edit: The OP has been edited to account for the items we've discussed thusfar. Please let me know if I've missed anything!

[Anthrowhale]

Edit: The OP has been edited to account for the items we've discussed thusfar. Please let me know if I've missed anything!

You may want to look at the arcane mastery feat since it makes Initiate of Mystra AMF casting reliable. Also, DMM[Persistent Spell] requires 7 TUs (level increase +1).

I'm still wondering about the Swarm Form spell. It would be much cleaner in terms of level advancement if that could be used rather than wildshape. A big drawback is "you cannot cast spells with verbal, somatic, material, or focus components". Surrogate Spellcasting deals with the first two. Summon Component could deal with the 3rd. The focus component is hard to get around, but at least it's not pervasively needed. A human Archivist 5/Hathran 3/Sacred Exorcist 1/?? 11 could qualify for IoM, persist AMF, and use Swarm Form with 8 feats (Ethran, Leadership, Surrogate Spellcasting, Extend Spell, Selective Spell, Persistent Spell, DMM[Persistent Spell], Arcane Mastery). Potentially, you could get access to Permeable Form (L3) or Ghostform (L8) as a divine spell and persist that as well. Persistent Ruin Delver's Fortune gives evasion. Permanency Telepathic bond gives a Fell Conspiracy equivalent.

This is missing out on Ghostly Grasp. Human Paragon is one approach, although you lose a level of spell advancement.