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My thought would be that a Swarm Eidolon could be a class archetype a Summoner could take that would modify the Eidolon to be a swarm of creatures. That way, your eidolon could be anything; a bee colony (swarm beast eidolon), a host of minor celestials (swarm angel eidolon), maybe even a collection of house drakes (swarm dragon eidolon).
If you wanted to give it the Swarm traits, then I agree with others that it should be able to apply to all types of Eidelons. And it'd kind of have to be an archetype, otherwise it'd be "not a swarm", "kind of a swarm", then finally blossom into "actual swarm" as you get the feats. That seems a bit silly.
But what does it mean to get Swarm traits? They vary by swarm. And how do those balance when it takes two feats and until 8th level even to be Tiny and that has few benefits and a notable drawback re: reach? Plus those swarm attacks vs. "everything in one's square" are pretty powerful too so one might regret giving up Strikes for a weakened version of that. Immunity to precision + being difficult/impossible to target w/ certain spells will likely cost one some AC or h.p., much like the Resistances would. Oof. Oh, and flying swarms would have to wait to fly until appropriate levels.
It'd be a hot mess designing anything like this is what it'd be, at least if one wants a balanced Eidelon from start to finish that's a swarm that whole time.
(The issues w/ Immunities, etc. is probably why there aren't Elemental or Undead Eidelons yet. They're harder to balance.)
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On the other hand, one could already make a nonflying swarm (not Swarm); reskin one's Eidelon to look like a swarm*. Done. Yes, it'd only give the imagery and feel, but how much of the concept relies on the mechanics? (non-rhetorical)
With Skilled Partner the faux swarm could get Quick Squeeze, Nimble Crawl, and eventually Kip Up, which resembles swarm movement.
It'd still be striking w/ Strikes, but you could name it something like "Swarm Rush" like all the rats/cats/whatnot focused their bites on that one target rather than swung w/ momentum.
There have been single-creature monsters composed of many bits before, like the rat one w/ all the tails tied together or the one composed of eels tied together or the Worm Who Walks which we have again.**
Though silly, with GM review first you could get a Familiar that matches for when you need to pull out a single critter from the pile.
*This is so much my favorite aspect of Eidelons. Between this and Meld Into Eidelon, you can visually make anything you imagine (of medium size that is, at least until later levels).
**Okay, now I want to build this & meld w/ it. :-)
"You're a what?!"
"A sentient pile of worms. With a Gnome inside."
"I have to rescue that Gnome!" *rolls for initiative*
"No, wait!"
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This might be easier than you think.
The size of a swarm is the size of the entire group of creatures, not that of any individual creature.
And a flying swarm could have an altitude limit much like the one given for the Sprite ancestry feat Evanescent Wings, with higher level feats permitting actual flight.
Various thoughts...
- Swarms should not be rideable.
- There's also a desire for hordes, which are similar to swarms, but not quite the same. In particular, the desire for an undead eidolon and a zombie horde, so we can finally get a legit "Undead Master" archetype for PF2. Having a squad of constructs, or a pack of wolves or whatever also seems like the sort of thing that might have an appeal.
- Weird thing about swarms/hordes is that while they are potentially larger, the reach does not increase accordingly. Other weird thing is that they don't naturally progress in the same way. For a horde summoner, it makes sense for it to just be a progression of feats - you summon one thing, and then you summon 4 things in a microhorde, and then you summon 9 or 16 things in a full-sized horde. A swarm summoner, though, wants to be hanging out with a swarm from level 1. So... probably a series of feats, then, with an archetype that requires them and ties into them in interesting ways.
- "Swarm" might also make sense as an Eidolon, perhaps in a way that's tied to the class archetype (so that said archetype has more build resources to work with in making it all work). I'm not saying that we shoudln't have flexibility in what kind of swarm it should be, but... how does the Plant Eidolon's increased reach even make sense for a swarm? Does the concept of a dragon swarm make any sense at all? What about a demon swarm? Practcally speaking, if you have two lvl 1 summoners, one of which has an angel swarm and one of which has a psychopomp swarm, what different effects are they supposed to have?
Just aesthetic.
Mechanics should Imo be the same regardless the Eidolon type/appareance ( looking at fey's it's pretty clear an eidolon can be anything, but this doesn't affect in any way the core mechanics ).
Yep, an Eidelon can BE a swarm, it just can't DO Swarm things mechanically (not w/o an Evolution feat giving it something similar).
So which Swarm things is one trying to do, and how would one balance them when so many of them are strong? How long is one willing to wait for the Eidelon to collect enough of these abilities to become a full Swarm?Ex. Are you willing to wait until later levels to get Immunity to Precision damage? How long before fitting in small gaps? What are you willing to trade? What is there to trade that's comparable to some of these?
An Eidelon with several Swarm abilities is plausible, but is it doable in a satisfying way? And from level 1? Monsters generally lack the breadth of abilities to exploit Swarm drawbacks (and a Summoner can avoid engaging their Eidelon w/ those which can) so how does one factor in those?
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As for a horde, one could reskin their Eidelon as a horde too (similarly lacking Horde mechanics). It wouldn't increase in size until 8th then 12th, but it'd grow. Reach would have wonky flavor that'd depend on the horde involved, whether stacking demons, a single animal dashing out of the pack, angelic warriors w/ reach weapons, or zombies connecting body parts in a chain. IMO that's doable with a bit of zany imagination. Not that undead are an option yet, but they could be Psychopomps.
Honestly, I can see the Summoner class doubling in content w/o any strain, what with Elementals & Undead remaining too (and them probably set aside for now also due to innate traits).
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Okay... what I'd like to see for a swarm archetype:
- Weaknesses to area and splash damage, and associated resists to pierce and slash.
- ability to enter enemy squares.
- Lose standard attacks. Has a built-in attack (possibly two-action) that deals damage to everyone the swarm covers (and possibly also adjacent enemies?) with a basic save. Some way to acquire special effects (poison/disease/etc?) on that attack
- Ability to pass through spaces that are too small for their standard size template. Ideally, ability to reposition which squares they cover as an action.
So... I could see this as a class archetype that eats your eidolon template.
- The weakness to area/splash and resist to pierce/slash is a buff, but within range of the level 1 evolution feat, I'd think (if the numbers were kept small enough initially) and if it *did* need more juice to keep up later, you could feed it with more feats and/or later eidolon features.
- The ability to enter enemy squares, loss of standard attack (and access to all associated feats), and gain of other attack instead" seems like it would be in-budget for the initial eidolon ability.
- the ability to pass through very small spaces isnt' really necessary for the level 1 eidolon (that sort of thing requires a level of coordination they just haven't developed yet) and seems like it could be either a reasonably low-level feat or the Eidolon Symbiosis ability at 7.
- The ability to reposition which squares they cover isn't an issue from the beginning, because they're not covering more than one square anyway. Instead, it would be part of an alternate size-increase feat that one could take instead of Hulking/Towering size that wouldn't give you the reach, or the ability to be ridden, or, necessarily, the height, but would give you a single-action move that would (say) let you pick a square on your eidolon, and reshape its template to any shape that included that square. That would also neatly handle much of what the troop/horde summoners might want (and the rest of that could be handled by further feats that took those as prereqs).
So... they'd probably need more evolution feat options later on to compensate for losing out on... basically every feat that interacts with basic attacks in any way or gives you some other form of standard strike, but with a well-built class archetype that had its own dedicated eidolon template, it should be possible to get basically everything that you need to feel like a swarm summoner at level 1. After that, it's just adjusting the numbers for balance.
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I would love a rat swarm eidolon. I do agree on the class archetype, because it would prevent overlap with synthesist while allowing a bit more oomph to some swarm resistances, without just expecting swarm weaknesses to balance them out.
Technically, the only "must haves" for a swarm is immunity to prone, grabbed, and restrained, a defense against non-AoE mental spells, and the ability to occupy the same square as other creatures.
For a swarm summoner, I think taking away the mental spell protection would be fine (since the summoner is connected to the eidolon on a mental and spiritual level, the spell hits fine, since the summoner is only one mind), taking away both attacks for a swarm attack that hits creatures in the swarm's space feels like a net neutral, and gaining an immunity to prone, grabbed, and restrained, and entering other creature's squares in exchange for a scaling weakness to splash and AoE is probably worth a 1st level feat.
The typical physical damage resistances we see on swarms could def be a 2nd level feat for something like resist = half the level of your focus spells.
Since the swarm won't have normal attacks, we'll want plenty of new options for boosting the swarm attack, like persistent damage, weird status conditions, diseases/poisons, etc.
I'd like for swarm options to be something you could put on any eidolon, rather than having only one swarm eidolon, and imo it merits a class archetype
Whether you need a class archetype depends on whether you need to alter anything beyond the eidolon itself to support it.
But clearly, if I ever have the necessary rules to make a swarm eidolon, it will be a non-flying mass of rats named Ben, with the summoner being named Willard. ;)
I'd be real concerned about an eidolon getting weakness to AoE damage. Those kinds of effects are already the summoner's bane as it is.
Are they? I mean, it's not an issue unless eidolon and caster are close enough to each other to fall under the same AOE template, and even then it's at least not as bad as it could be.
I'd like for swarm options to be something you could put on any eidolon, rather than having only one swarm eidolon
See... I was thinking that too until I started considering the particulars. The issue is that so many of the Eidolons have benefits that don't really make sense for a swarm eidolon.
- Plant is all about increasing reach, and then has an "attack everything within reach" power. That gets... weird, with a swarm.
- Dragon has Draconic Frenzy, which doesn't really work, and breath weapon, which is pretty odd conceptually.
- Beast has two strikes, which don't really work as well, and then Primal Roar, which is, again, pretty odd conceptually.
- Anger Phantom gets a strike.
That's... almost half of them? I'm not saying that it's not possible to work around this stuff, but based on the disconnects, I'm a bit concerned that it would eventually lead to some sort of weirdly overpowered combo, and I don't want Paizo to have to say "Well, okay, but is it balanced for swarms?" every time they bring out a new eidolon.
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There is a companion item in Grand Bazaar that turns your companion into a swarm.
I'd think the Swarm Eidelon would be swapping out the standard abilities of the types...which yes, makes the types superfluous. This means it'd work similarly to having a "Swarm" type that the player could add any flavor or skin they wanted to.
Except an Angel swarm probably should still do Good damage and some other flavor that wouldn't be able to be replicated.
I can see the flavor advantages... but it also leads to questions. Like... if you have an angel swarm, then yes, you want it to deal Good damage. Does the concept of "angel swarm" make sense here? (I mean, you could say that they're lantern archons, I guess, but that sounds more like the troop summoner than the swarm summoner). Does a psychopomp swarm make any sense? A swarm of fairies or constructs does make sense, but those are the ones that are easiest to duplicate with feats anyway.
...and here we get around to the other side of the coin, because one of the most obvious iconic ones is the Swarm of Rats. Well, that's pretty clearly a Beast. So... when my summoner gets to lvl 7, my rat swarm develops a terrifying roar? Okay, the idea that a rat swarm might squeak in an unsettling manner isn't entirely unreasonable, but it's not really helping sell the fiction, either - it's more something to work around than something that feeds in.
Side note - I would like the Troop Summoner to have some way to get the feel of "all of my soldiers have bows/firebolts/lantern-beams/etc" and make a bunch of little ranged attacks all on the same target. I'm pretty sure that it can be made balanced, with a bit of work. Sadly, I'm not convinced that it can be done in a way that would feel satisfying to the person doing it while not feeling frustrating/boring to everyone else.
There is a companion item in Grand Bazaar that turns your companion into a swarm.
Huh. That will probably make things easier to balance.
In the Jojo's Bizzare Adventure 'Diamond is Unbreakable' arc, the character Shigechi has a swarm of mini stands that could be a Eidolon