So, I'm planning a unique encounter for an RP based campaign. The idea is an ant colony which has gained sentience through a hivemind system- This colony has evolved in a way where each ant acts as a cell for the single "creature", which is the colony as a whole. The colony has, within the last few months, grown large enough to become sentient. It is Neutral Good aligned, but allied with a group which could possibly put the colony at odds with the party. The party will be around level 7.
Mechanically, I would like it to be a caster. I believe it should be a cleric to best demonstrate that it works based on spirit. It is not so much learning arcane magic as it is learning to tap into natural powers around it. I want it to be expressed like this- Each ant can cast any of the spells per day of the colony, which removes that spell from the spells per day list. Functionally, each ant is an arm capable of independent casting, but the spell pool is divided up among the entire group.
Each ant should also be relatively weak, capable of being killed in one hit by most players at level 7. The colony "dies" when a certain number of ants have been killed, which puts them below the threshold for sentience and causes them to retreat and defend themselves underground like normal ants. I'm thinking the number should be around 50 so it has a sense of wiping out large numbers and taking a chunk out of what is essentially the colony's brain. I'd also like to do a Hal-9000 thing, "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do" and all that. (I'm a fan of making players feel their moral choices)
So, my question is this- What kind of CR would an encounter like this be? They are all spellcasters, but their spell pool is shared. They are also pretty weak individually. If I were to make this a 10th or 12th level cleric, would the frailty of the individual members counteract the level difference?
It really depends on how you're planning on spacing out your fights.
The conceptual makeup of these monsters is much more offensive than defensive. They'll die in one hit; buff spells will at best extend one unit's lifespan by a round. Whereas a cleric could benefit from multiple buffs throughout the combat (multiplied by lots of HP), a buff only affects one creature, therefore buffs are suboptimal for the swarm. Attacks and debuffs are good, though -- the effects of these spells will benefit the swarm for the duration of the day's combats.
On the other hand, we have a great potential offensive advantage. A single cleric can be locked down by a creature's reach, or disabled by a single spell. These can't. In fact, with several of them running around the battlefield, they can probably get a clear line of sight to any member of the party near the beginning of the battle. And -- each of them has access to the cleric pool of spells. They could be blasting off several high-level spells a round.
I do have some concerns here. With that kind of firing rate, your monsters may be a little too deadly, and exhaust themselves quickly. Receiving the effects of a 5th, 5th, 4th- and 4th-level spell are pretty heinous for a party. It doesn't matter how weak your enemies are if you don't survive long enough to touch their hit points. Not only that, but after the first round, the creatures have burned off their greatest powers -- leaving them too powerful and then too weak at various stages of the fight.
Consider putting a limit on how much spellcasting they can channel in a single round. Perhaps look at Quicken Spell and use that as inspiration for what a normal cleric could throw down each round.
Because of their fragility, you should take pains to frame the combats to guarantee that somebody survives the PCs' initial volley. If two PCs win initiative and the spellcaster takes out most of them with a fireball and the fighter mops up the rest, that's not good.
Consider giving the hivemind Improved Initiative so they don't consistently run in last and die before acting. Place the creatures in strategic positions. They're smart; they know their weaknesses. Each unit may be expendable, but they don't want to die without causing some damage for the hivemind's survival. Not all of the units should be affected by a single fireball. In fact, you may position some of them in hidden positions so they're not immediately apparent.
You might terrify your PCs with these creatures if you don't give them quick access to knowledge about the hive. If they walk in and see several of these creatures casting 4rth- and 5th-level cleric spells, they might panic, thinking that every one of them somehow acts as a cleric with low hit points. This could lead to retreats, but on the upside, it could lead to weird-but-fun ideas like flooding the hive with water and letting Pharasma sort the rest out.
I do have logical concerns with your victory conditions. One, if the PCs kill 50 of them, there's a chance that they'll run out of spells long before the combat is over, turning the rest of the combat into kind of a toothless slog. Further, if all they need is 50 extra ants to be sentient, and they otherwise act like normal ants -- they might replenish those numbers in days, forcing your PCs to consider wiping out the nest to prevent them from immediately returning as a threat.
Wading through weak monsters is fun sometimes, so the '50' number isn't a bad one. That's what minions are all about. You might change the victory conditions into performing certain actions to kill lots of them however, like -- as said before -- flooding their tunnels, releasing the celestial anteater, or whatever else.
Although he never explicitly says, I had the impression these were giant ants. He mentions 'each one' being easy to kill, and the victory condition being 50 deaths. If he were talking about a normal swarm, and a Pathfinder swarm includes 300 creatures, then his entire hive would lose sentience and spellcasting after the first hit.
Oh, I should have mentioned this earlier, but I was a bit tired- They're allied with a tribe of humans and half elves who are mostly druids, third level average. There will be about 30 combatant spread out over a small walled city, and the bulk of the ants live inside a cave behind the city. The ants act as companions for the druidic tribe and extend into the city.
Given that they are neutral good, most of their spells will be aimed at healing and buffing their druid allies.
They will likely not have many damaging or harmful spells. Constricting Coils seems the only relevant damaging spell I would put on them- The rest have a sense of evil or cruel that the colony would not use. Holy ice also seems to be a possibility, but they would likely use it to create a wall rather than attack.
This said, I am aware of the possibility for extreme damage should the party face the entire colony at once, but I would like to foreshadow this and make them use tactics if they decide to attack the city at all. I would like the encounter to feel like they are attacking a very powerful but also very limited being, with weaknesses that can be easily exploited. I want an assault on the city to give the vibe that the ants are trying to defend, and are best suited to being all curled up in a defensive ball rather than work as a mobile offensive, if that makes sense. By making them strong in numbers but weak alone, I feel it demonstrates that they are community focused.
(If you're interested, the RP situation is that, due to an unfortunate circumstance, the party is now tangled up in a slave trading company who wants to take the previously-nomadic villagers, who have recently established a small city by working with this sentient ant colony. The party is secretly working for the city guard in an attempt to arrest the slavers, but the party has to gather evidence by going on a slaving run. The party has the option of fighting with the slavers to capture the natives, which requires eliminating their new allies, or joining the natives to fend off the slavers. The rewards are also heavily weighed in the favor of working with the slaving company, which makes for some tough moral decisions. Go for the wealth because it's wealth? Work with the slavers to get them arrested through proper legal channels, and get rich as a bi product? Join the rebel cause and say no to slavery for no reward but the good karma?)
@ the david- It's not a swarm as it doesn't use a swarm template. They are giant ants, but each ant acts like a cluster of neurons in a brain. For fluff, I'm saying that the actual action is based on pheromonal communication, which has evolved to express a single consciousness rather than just basic messages to the rest of the colony. All of the ants thinking and expressing their thoughts as pheromones at once has developed into a mind.
Hahah. Could PCs cast negate aroma to cut them off from their source of power?
That would be interesting.
Hahah. Could PCs cast negate aroma to cut them off from their source of power?
That would be interesting.
I think if any of them had it, I would allow it. That's being clever, and I support that.
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