Confusion and Charm Monster vs. Swarms with INT

[davidvs]

Assume the party is fighting a swarm of a creature with intelligence (crows, perhaps).

What happens if a single swarm is hit by Confusion? Might its member creatures attack each other?

What happens if a swarm is hit by Charm Monster? Does this charm "one monster" (the whole swarm) or "one creature" (a tiny part of the swarm, so no in-game effect)?

[Umbral Reaver]

Swarms are not subject to spells that target a limited number of individuals. Confusion would work, as it hits an area. The swarm is one creature and would roll once on the confusion table for the entire swarm, then act accordingly. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's how it works as far as I know.

A swarm with a hive mind, however, is treated as a single creature for the purposes of mind-affecting affects, I think.

[Omelite]

davidvs wrote:

Assume the party is fighting a swarm of a creature with intelligence (crows, perhaps).

What happens if a single swarm is hit by Confusion? Might its member creatures attack each other?

What happens if a swarm is hit by Charm Monster? Does this charm "one monster" (the whole swarm) or "one creature" (a tiny part of the swarm, so no in-game effect)?

Charm monster targets individual creatures, so you'd be wasting a spell.

Confusion is an AoE, so it would affect the swarm. RAW I don't think they would attack one another because they are not individual targets (also, good luck rolling a ridiculously high number of D100 to see what each individual creature does). Realistically I think most GMs would simply roll its D100 as one creature, and on "attack nearest creature" they'd make up a mechanic for the individual creatures to attack one another.

[Umbral Reaver]

I'd run 'attacks nearest creature' to be first attacking any creature in the swarm's space. If there's nothing there, then it deals swarm damage to itself.

[concerro]

You cant target swarms with spells that are designed to only target one creature.

prd wrote:

Swarm 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 less 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, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms) if the swarm has an Intelligence score and a hive mind.

In order for the swarm to be targeted it has to have a intelligence, [b]and[/b[ a hive mind.

They won't attack each other because they are never treated as separate creature, but one creature.

prd wrote:

Swarm Subtype: A swarm is a collection of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that acts as a single creature.

[setzer9999]

I had to necro this topic because I'm looking for the ruling on confusing a swarm as well. I'm not sure the above dialogue completely solved this.

confusion reference:

prd wrote wrote:

d% Behavior

01–25 Act normally.
26–50 Do nothing but babble incoherently.
51–75 Deal 1d8 points of damage + Str modifier to self with item in hand.
76–100 Attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject's self).

A confused creature who can't carry out the indicated action does nothing but babble incoherently. Attackers are not at any special advantage when attacking a confused creature. Any confused creature who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes. Note that a confused creature will not make attacks of opportunity against anything that it is not already devoted to attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has just been attacked).

For the sake of argument, let's say the only ability a player has that will affect a swarm is an AoE with confusion... say channeling negative energy with a madness variant. If it hit and the swarm didn't succeed at the Will save, but survived the damage portion, what happens then? It is not a targeted attack, its an AoE so it should be able to affect the swarm.

If there was only 1 swarm by itself, just a single five foot swarm, by RAW, it cannot attack itself as the "nearest creature".

If it can't hold an "item in hand", can it still damage itself for 1d8 damage because an "item in hand" (whatever THAT vague piece of language means in RAW, forgive me if I'm missing something) could be construed as virtually anything... including a natural weapon like a claw?

If it doesn't have an Int high enough to have a language, can it even "babble incoherently"? If it can't do any of the other things, its supposed to babble incoherently, but if the ruling is that it can't "babble" then what?

Obviously, I think if another creature is nearby, including another 5ft swarm, it would attack the nearest one. Things just get a little weird when there is only 1 swarm left.

I'm very interested in how this would be ruled in a Pathfinder Society game, not so much in house rulings. House rulings seem obvious, that common sense would suggest that a confused swarm would turn on itself as the "nearest creature" and "babbling incoherently" could just be crazed squawking. I'm interested in an official ruling on this mechanic though.

[RuyanVe]

Greetings, fellow traveller.

The easier one to solve is Do nothing but babble incoherently - at least for a murder of ravens, swarms of rats or similar creatures which give away sounds - they just do that: ravens croak, rats, bats etc. cheep.

Then I would interprete Deal 1d8 points of damage + Str modifier to self with item in hand more losely:
The swarm deals 1d8 points of damage + Str modifier to self - be it by bumping into each other, falling to the ground (if flying), clawing, biting etc. at each other.

Ruyan.