Probably not a normal option in any book, considering animal companions are assumed to be singular entities.
There is a magic item in the Advanced Race Guide that ALMOST works for that, though.
Hm...if I were to build a swarm-based druid, I think it'd start out as a "# per day"-style ability. Normally, the druid would go around with a single dire rat, but rats would generally follow the druid wherever he goes. A certain number of times per day, he can call upon his followers, having them coalesce into a swarm directed by the dire rat.
Perhaps around 4th level, he could overcome this limitation, and it'd just be a swarm 24/7. Then it could begin progressing normally. Perhaps around 8th level it could become a larger swarm, and obviously there'd be some sort of variant wild shape ability (probably substantially delayed, though).
Probably not a normal option in any book, considering animal companions are assumed to be singular entities.
Swarms are considered singular entities.
No rule, but an awesome idea!
You could have a whole book on swarms, troops and other groups. Animal companion swarms, an eidolon with swarm as a base form, archetypes that let you turn into swarms, the possibilities are endless!
In the meantime you could just have a swarm companion so long as your DM allows it and you balence the swarms stats against existing animal options.
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Swarms are not balanced vs other companions by nature of being swarms. Immunity or Half damage from weapons, automatic damage from attacks without needing attack rolls, distraction on every damage + poison or other special attacks.
Taking double damage from AoEs does not balance a swarm vs the benefits they get until very high level.
That said, if you GM allows it as a house rule, go nuts.
It's still not particularly balanced.
Just take a dire rat animal companion. Why does it need to be a swarm? They both have filth fever as a disease ability. Besides, I'm not sure how you plan to use a rat swarm to poison the food supply of a city.
You wouldn't be allowed by the rules to break them apart and control each creature individually to poison different locations simultaneously. And rats swarms don't have a natural poison affect, and the disease I mentioned is an injury disease. You couldn't spread it by having the rats naw on the food, because injury poisons/disease don't work that way.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Swarms are not balanced vs other companions by nature of being swarms. Immunity or Half damage from weapons, automatic damage from attacks without needing attack rolls, distraction on every damage + poison or other special attacks.
Taking double damage from AoEs does not balance a swarm vs the benefits they get until very high level.
That said, if you GM allows it as a house rule, go nuts.
Inability to benefit from magic items or most buff/cure spells probably pushes it back toward being balanced though, at least at higher levels. By the time most things have DR, the swarm isn't going to contribute much to combat.
Rat swarms take full damage from bludgeoning weapons and half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. As long as the distraction DR isn't too high, I don't think there's a balance issue.
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Great idea! GMs beware though. I saw a thread on this board, possibly last year, in which someone went through published Paizo adventures and determined how many endscene bosses could handle a swarm. It turns out about 80% of Paizo-published BBEGs have absolutely no way to affect a swarm, and would be forced to either flee or die.