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I recently discovered there's still people playing PFS1 and so i started theorycrfting a PFS-legal character that i might eventually try to play.

The idea wasto play a Swarm Monger Druid but my plans came to a halt when i couldn't understand how some interactions are supposed to work in the game.

I'll make a list of all the interactions that make me scratch my head in hope that at least some of the find an answer.

1. How does the Fecund Familiar ability interact with the Merge With Familiar spell?

https://www.aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Druid%20Swarm%20Mong er

https://www.aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Merge%20with%20Familiar

What happens if i first merge with the familiar and then transform it into a swarm?
What happens if i first transform it into a swarm than merge it with me?

In both cases, does it retain the immunity to damage and effects?
Does it retain the limitless effect duration while merged?

Or is this interactiion PFS legal but completely unregulated and decided by the DM based on how much he likes you?

Honestly i don't have any idea on how this interaction is supposed to work based on rules.

2. What happens if i take the Mauler archetype and turn my familiar medium with Battle Form?

https://aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Familiar%20Mauler

What happens if i first turn it medium and then into a swarm?
What about the opposite?

My interpretation here is thatin both cases the familiar occupies 4 contiguous 5by5 squares but the creature receives the damage increase to his swarm attack as usual, get 5 foor of reach they cannot use since they still deal damage to creatures they stand on, and get the usual maluses to stealth and flight.
Probably the number of creatures in the swarm is also reduced, following the swarm subtype description, not like it really matters since it's just visual.

"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."

3. What happens if the Swarm Monger dips into First World Wizard for the Fey-Touched Familiar that has the Change Shape ability, a polymorph effect this time that should interact differently compared to Battle Form.

https://www.aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Wizard%20First%20Wor ld%20Caller

My reading this time is that the familiar if turned into a swarm and then into a human through change shape ir loses the swarm attack by polymorph rules but the subtype remains so i'm a little cunfused.

4. What about the swarm attack itself, is it a natural attack?
The natural attack rules don't mention all of the possible natural attacks, so they might be.
Not only that but many swarms use stings for their additional effects, and they fall into the natural attack category, also the non-swarm version of some of these creatures have natural attacks implying that biting and stinging is what they do when they attack as a swarm but this is already outside of rules territory and more in the common sense one.

So, would an amulet of mighty fists equippped onto the base creature give the bonuses to it when it turns into a swarm?
What about a spell like magic Fang?

Thanks to anyone who replies, tried to look everywhere but i couldn't find even a single answer to all of these questions.


1] Intrugue Oracle's Assumed Form (Sp): You can change your appearance at will, as disguise self with a caster level equal to your oracle level. At 7th level, you can choose to actually transform, which works the same way but counts as a polymorph effect instead of an illusion and doesn’t allow a Will save to disbelieve. At 11th level, the ability lasts until you dismiss it or use it again, allowing you to even keep it active while you sleep. At 15th level, when you use this ability as a polymorph effect, you can gain the size bonus to your ability scores and additional racial abilities as if using alter self.

2] Vigilante talent, Malleable Flesh (Su) (Chronicle of Legends pg. 7): Whether through mutation or alchemy, some vigilantes have flesh that is as moldable as clay and as fluid as ink. A vigilante with this talent gains the shapechanger subtype and the compression universal monster rule. In addition, the vigilante can alter his appearance as disguise self, except that the changes are physical rather than illusory. However, aspects of the vigilante’s aesthetic persist in all forms, halving the bonus on Disguise checks gained from this effect and from seamless guise. At 12th level, the vigilante can pass through narrow openings, even mere cracks, along with any item he wears or carries (to a maximum of his light load).

From what i can see the big difference is that one is a polymorph effect while the other isn't.

This implies that in Assumed form's case the polymorph rules apply while they don't for Malleable Flesh.

Th relevant polymorph rules are:

1] In addition to these benefits, you gain any of the natural attacks of the base creature, including proficiency in those attacks. These attacks are based on your base attack bonus, modified by your Strength or Dexterity as appropriate, and use your Strength modifier for determining damage bonuses.

2] If a polymorph spell causes you to change size, apply the size modifiers appropriately, changing your armor class, attack bonus, Combat Maneuver Bonus, and Stealth skill modifiers. Your ability scores are not modified by this change unless noted by the spell.

3] While under the effects of a polymorph spell, you lose all extraordinary and supernatural abilities that depend on your original form (such as keen senses, scent, and darkvision), as well as any natural attacks and movement types possessed by your original form. You also lose any class features that depend upon form, but those that allow you to add features (such as sorcerers that can grow claws) still function.

What do you think? Should they work the same?

To me the answer is yes, because of the absurdity that Malleable Flesh would create if it didn't work like, or wasn't treated as, a polymorph effect.

The first one coming to mind would be a character with horns or a tail that turns into a creature without those appendages whiste still being able to attack since the polymorph rule n°3 never had to be applied.


Greetings people, i've been looking for an infinite size combo that i could use to make a massive character, beyond colossal.

I believe i found one that works RAW and i would like your opinion.

As the title says the interaction only works RAW and it's obviously unintended for a character to increase in size indefinitely, so please let's have this in mind during the conversation.

The basic idea here stems from how Disguise self works when paired with Enlarge.

If you use Disguise self you can only appear as a creature of your size, but if you cast enlarge you can appear as a creature of a size bigger than yours. Then you can decide to dismiss enlarge and you are still left with a large disguise, this is the basic principle that i'll be using.

For the combination we need 2 levels in Vigilante with Malleable Flesh and 1 size increasing effect of our choice.

Malleable Flesh (Su) (Chronicle of Legends pg. 7): Whether through mutation or alchemy, some vigilantes have flesh that is as moldable as clay and as fluid as ink. A vigilante with this talent gains the shapechanger subtype and the compression universal monster rule. In addition, the vigilante can alter his appearance as disguise self, except that the changes are physical rather than illusory. However, aspects of the vigilante’s aesthetic persist in all forms, halving the bonus on Disguise checks gained from this effect and from seamless guise. At 12th level, the vigilante can pass through narrow openings, even mere cracks, along with any item he wears or carries (to a maximum of his light load).

The big difference here is that Malleable Flesh is not illusory, your character truly becomes one size larger and this allows the pc to repeat the process indefinitely until a satifsying size is reached since the character is not under any spell increasing it's size or polymorph effect.

Would this be a viable solution to bend the existing rules of the game into realizing my concept wihout the need of any kind of homebrew?