Granule Construct Swarm

Construct: A construct is an animated object or artificially created creature.

They have low-light vision.

They have darkvision.

They have immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).

They have immunity to bleed, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.

They cannot heal damage on their own, but often can be repaired via exposure to a certain kind of effect or through the use of the Craft Construct feat. Constructs can also be healed through spells such as make whole. A construct may have the fast healing special quality.

They are not subject to ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, or nonlethal damage.

They have immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless).

A construct cannot be raised or resurrected.

Constructs do not breathe, eat, or sleep.

Swarm: A swarm is a collection of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that acts as a single creature. A single swarm occupies a square (if it is made up of nonflying creatures) or a cube (of flying creatures) of Large size, but it has no reach, like its component creatures. In order to attack, it moves into an opponent’s space, which provokes an attack of opportunity. It can occupy the same space as a creature of any size, since it crawls all over its prey. A swarm can move through squares occupied by enemies and vice versa without impediment, although the swarm provokes an attack of opportunity if it does so. A swarm can move through cracks or holes large enough for its component creatures.

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. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a Large square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking. There are larger swarms. The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares.

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 is intelligent and has a hive mind. A swarm takes half again as much damage from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells.

Swarms made up of Diminutive or Fine creatures are susceptible to high winds, such as those created by a gust of wind spell. Wind affects a swarm as a creature of the same size as its constituent creatures. A swarm rendered unconscious by means of nonlethal damage becomes disorganized and dispersed, and does not reform until its hit points exceed its nonlethal damage.

Swarms don’t make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed. Swarm attacks are not subject to a miss chance for concealment or cover.

A swarm’s attacks are usually nonmagical. Damage reduction sufficient to reduce a swarm attack’s damage to 0, being incorporeal, or other special abilities usually give a creature immunity (or at least resistance) to damage from a swarm. Some swarms also have acid, blood drain, poison, or other special attacks in addition to normal damage.

Swarms do not threaten creatures, and do not make attacks of opportunity with their swarm attack. However, they distract foes whose squares they occupy.

A swarm can nauseate the creatures that it damages. Any living creature that takes damage from a swarm may be nauseated. Spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm may be difficult. Using skills that involve patience and concentration may be equally difficult.

Granule construct swarms are the product of powerful artificers pushing the boundaries of their craft. Alone, each individual is a barely sentient construct so tiny as to be practically invisible, a speck of dust that moves under its own power. Brought together by the thousands into a swarm, however, the complex linking of simple systems creates an emergent consciousness of humanlike intelligence, although alien enough to make communication nearly impossible. Granule construct swarms exist solely to infest larger living organisms and reproduce in the relative safety and comfort provided by their bodies. Capable of repairing and replicating out of the raw elements around them, granule constructs within a host are almost unstoppable through physical means, burrowing their way into flesh and sending signals through the bloodstream. Once safely ensconced, granule construct swarms modify their hosts to maximize survival potential, a trait that leads certain people to intentionally cultivate granule construct swarms inside themselves, despite the resulting deformities. Energy damage to a host damages the granule construct swarm equally, but normal weapon damage does not. Granule constructs can vacate dead or dying creatures whenever they so choose, emerging as a standard swarm.

Any granule construct swarm with enough constituent constructs forms a hive mind, giving it intelligence. When a granule construct swarm loses constructs beyond a certain threshold, it becomes mindless. In addition, a granule construct swarm shares its collective consciousness with any granule construct hosts. As long as it remains in contact, the hosts cannot be flanked, and if one of them is aware of an enemy, they all are.

A granule construct swarm may attempt to infest a living creature. The targeted creature may become a granule construct host, as a portion of the granule construct swarm invades and begins reproducing inside its body. The transformation takes a minute, during which time the host is incapacitated as its body warps and spasms. A remove disease or heal spell cast on a granule construct host forces the swarm to abandon the body.

Although created in arcane laboratories, granule construct swarms can travel anywhere safe to their host creatures.

A swarm can disperse into the air around it, expanding to fill an area. While dispersed, the swarm deals no damage and may not use its special abilities, but it is able to immediately hide in plain sight and takes only the standard amount of damage from area effects. Once dispersed, it takes the swarm a while to coalesce again, during which time it cannot attack. A granule construct swarm can remain in its dispersed state indefinitely.

They are resistant to fire.

Up close, each microscopic granule construct appears as a silver sphere with an all-purpose orifice at one end that it uses to gather information, take in nutrients, and focus the electromagnetic charges that propel it through the air. At the opposite end emerges a single manipulator claw. In a swarm, they appear as a dense cloud, somewhere between dust and a shadow, that constantly shifts shape and emits a faint hum.

A granule construct swarm regains health at an exceptional rate. Except where noted here, fast healing is just like natural healing. Fast healing does not restore health lost from starvation, thirst, or suffocation, nor does it allow a creature to regrow lost body parts. It does not allow lost body parts to be reattached. Fast healing continues to function (even while dying) until a creature dies, at which point the effects of fast healing end immediately.

Blindsight is similar to blindsense, but is far more discerning. Using nonvisual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, keen smell, acute hearing, or echolocation, a creature with blindsight maneuvers and fights as well as a sighted creature. Invisibility, darkness, and most kinds of concealment are irrelevant, though the creature must have line of effect to a creature or object to discern that creature or object. Usually, blindsight is continuous, and the creature need do nothing to use it. Some forms of blindsight, however, must be triggered. If a creature must trigger its blindsight ability, the creature gains the benefits of blindsight only for a brief moment.