As a long time magic fan, I want to try and bring slivers to pathfinder. Slivers are a race of hive mind like creatures that share abilities. The group that is going to attack them will be level 8.
They are pirates and I'm thinking they encounter a few ships that have been destroyed by the creatures where they encounter 2-3 stragglers at a time. Then they will find the hive where there is a larger boss type fight, but a swarm of slivers protecting it.
When a sliver dies it stops sharing its special abilities, thus the best way to fight the boss is to take out the lackeys first.
Now, the question is, how do I build them? Mostly what cool abilities can I give them that will be noticed as going away during a fight?
Teamwork feats could be a really cool way to go about it that is already built into the system.
The other options is to take your pick of lvl 1 spells and have them as slas
Will this be the only encounter that day? That is, can you go with a CR-12 or higher fight? (Eh, before it gets whittled down to size, I mean.)
What size are they? What type/subtype? Will the queen take class levels?
Do they have natural armor? Although I don't see how to reduce that. Maybe they could (also or instead) have a gradually decreasing deflection bonus to AC?
How do they move? Not just walking, obviously. Do they fly or swim?
Do they swarm?
Do they have melee attacks, ranged, or both? Do they have weapon attacks, or natural weapons?
Do they use an energy attack? Are they resistant to an energy attack? (I hope the answer to both of these is "yes," because that's an easy way to scale down abilities. They lose a die of damage & 3 points of resistance with every death, or some such thing.) Which energies?
Do they have an aura, that might stack with others of their type? (In that case, getting one alone would result in a faint aura.)
Do they get an incredibly high Fast Healing, that decreases with reduced numbers?
They have a mental communication. Do they have a phenomenal combined Will save, that gradually decreases?
Do they have a decreasing resistance to mind-affecting effects?
Or is that a key vulnerability; are they penalized on mind-affecting effects? (A penalty wouldn't decrease with deaths; it would just be that they're extra-open to mental effects because of the hive-mind thing.)
Do they have an AoE attack, that gradually reduces in scope until at the end, it's just a one-square splash attack?
Do they cooperate in making CMB attacks? That might indeed be best represented by teamwork feats.
DO THEIR ABILITY SCORES DECREASE? That would be a phenomenal effect... But hard to justify in some cases. (Mental stats, sure. See Will saves. But the physical ones that typically come up in combat, not so much. Of course, if at least some have SLAs...)
Do they have SLAs? Do some, at least? It would be easy to decrease CL as the caster's fellows die...
Slivers are Human sized (so medium) insect like creatures. The "Queen" would need to be at least large though. They share powers in a way that when one with firebreathing comes into the battle they all start breathing fire. Without any powers or the vanilla version would be a melee combatant that moves around on the ground.
I'm looking to run 2-3 encounters over one day/session. They will be at sea and find ghost ships that when explored will have 2-4 slivers left behind. I need to come up with motivation for them to find and kill the slivers still.
I'm looking for abilities to give them that will change the fights mid fight. Hidden numbers such as spell resistance or armor would be difficult for players to notice (but I may still use). For example blur and haste are great for spells that change how a battle goes. Giving them energy attacks that they use at a distance seems good. Granting additional forms of movement (specifically flying) is good as well.At this point I'm trying to come up with 12 abilities like that fit these criteria.
The abilities don't really decrease as some die, but more of an all or nothing effect.
If you think that a particular ability is too strong, you could add a mitigating factor to it. For example, a particularly nimble sliver climbs on deck and all of them other automatically gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC. When a flying sliver enters the battle, it has to use a standard action to grant wings to the others. Maybe it shrieks or emits a pheromone that triggers the metamorphosis. Such a mitigating factor wouldn't matter in a group that had been together before the fight, but situationally it could make the ability on par with lesser abilities.
How did the walking ones get on-board a ship?
They hung out with a flying one for a while.
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Hive Power (Su):
A Sliver is considered to share all the spell-like abilities of other Slivers within 30 feet of itself. At 5 HD, this range extends to 100 feet. At 10 HD, this range extends to 400 feet.
Powers:
(1st)
Endure Elements
Comprehend Languages
Magic Aura
Enlarge Person
Expeditious Retreat
Feather Fall
Reduce Person
(2nd)
Resist Energy
See Invisibility
Blur
Invisibility
Bear's Endurance (and similar)
Spider Climb
(3rd)
Nondetection
Protection from Energy
Heroism
Rage
Displacement
Blink
Fly
Haste
Magic Weapon, Greater
Water Breathing
...
Question, are you including a way your PCs can identify which creature is sharing which effect so as to prioritize which to focus fire first?
And building on that, a way that a special Sliver can make this process fuzzy/difficult/impossible as a curve ball?