The Hivemind Project

Contributers: WotC, SheaMan

I sat down at a genric Revised Version 3.5 game and someone said I should play a Formain. Someone else was playing a Insect race, and it seemed reasonable. Then things got weird, weirder, and wacko as I fell down a rabbit hole of bizzare d20/OGL examples all wrapped up in one creature. This project started as the attempt to apply an ECL and Level Adjustment onto a Formain from the Revised Version 3.5 or more accuractley a purchased and registered (btb) version of Wizard's of the Coast's Monster's Manual. It has become an example of how to deal with not just OGL material, but also Product Identity (PI) such as the d20 license. I dub it the Hivemind Project in honor of that peculiar, and (Ex), ability that seperates the Formians and the Hell Spawn Swarm from its Revised Version 3.5 comrades.

OGL: Lesson 1. Ignore Things You Don't Like

The first thing of extraordinary interest is that Hivemind comes in Swarmian Hivemind and Formian Hivemind. The first lesson regarding OGL is that you can ignore this or do what I have decided to do myself. You could ignore the Formian Hivemind. You could ignore the Swarm Hivemind. You could say that the Swarm Hivemind is a (Su) effect and the Formian as (Ex). You could also declare the Swarm Hivemind a Magical Effect while the Telepathic Formian could be retasked into a Psionic. Have decided if Magic is different from Psionics? Have you decided if Magic Exists. If the Formian Hivemind is Psionic in nature then the Formians can be used as simple aliens in the Modern SRD, with some revision. You could also see no problems with these rules and play as though there was no breakdown of the rules.

OGL: Lesson 2. Make Things Up

One thing that I can't ignore is that you can't leave this bizzare duplicity in the rules of a rigorous computer proof mechanical system. That's why the Hivemind Project is here in BST. In the process here a d20 compatible version of the Formian (including a valid version of a Formian Hive's level breakdown) will be produced, but there will also be something far more bizzare. One of the things that I noticed as I reviewed the Formian is that the points don't stack up completely. The Scores for the Formian Queen are all 20, and that indicates that the creator did exactly what you are supposed to do and just made things up. I imagine that any "balancing" of the Formian Hive was done after numbers were thrown on the table. Its possible that the creators of the Revised Version 3.5 SRD transcribed the Formian Hive as accuratly as they could from 2nd Edition D&D material.

System License (D&D): Forget Names and Places

In D&D the Formians come from somewhere, and have had many glorious battles (in which they lost) with character's whose names will go down in the history of D&D. That history belongs to the product "D&D" and the people that own it. The Revised Version 3.5 Formians are an "Outsider Type" that comes from a "Lawful Plane" other than the Prime Material Plane. Were you to so choose you could mandate that the Formians were not Extraplaner, or that they needed to eat. You could create a Formian type. You could say that all Blink Dogs are purple and are known in your product as People Eaters if you wanted to. Whats different about an planer or extraplaner OGL revision of the Formian in the Revised Version 3.5 SRD is that you can create a race that lives and breaths and sleeps or doesn't for your product and you can call it Formian. Unlike a certain statistical write up for a race of "Snake-Men" that appear in the D&D Monster's Manual, but not in the Revised Version 3.5 SRD.

System License (d20): d20 What?

The word "Yuan-ti" belongs to D&D, but the statistics that drive it in the mechanics of d20 and OGL do not. Whereas you can take the Formians whole clothe (minus the name of their D&D Wheel Cosmology origin) from D&D into your d20 you are forced to abscond with a nameless and nie culturally blank snake-men templates. Why Yuan-ti was withheld, and Formian was donated - I may never know - but the Formian name and cultural reference has been "copy-lefted" into the mythalogical realm of the Unicorn and the Terrasque. They are "Them" in a 1950's Men in Black. They are the "Bugs" of Dropship Troopers 30k, or the alien xenomorph from a campaign set in a world of white blooded androids and squid faced killer aliens that like to hunt. At the same time they are not.

The real killer thing about the System Licenses as they impact the OGL is that its just plain good advice. There is no way anyone can tell you that you can't use the name troll or naga. Unicorn or Medusa, but you should be able to see why someone would tell you that you can't use Umber Hulk and Githzerai in a world of your creation. Those creatures are not the Hydra or the Manticore, at least not yet. The Formians are not either. You can walk up to an average person on this planet and ask them what a Unicorn, a Manticore, and a Dragon is - and if they can't get Manticore or Unicorn they will most likely be able to tell you what a dragon is. The average "D&D" player may or may not be able to tell you what a Formian is, and of the ones that do know of it most of them would likely need to reference something to tell you anything more than the fact that they are Ant-Centaurs.

In the due course of history the Formians could come to feature in your average child's fantasy story, but that'll probably take a couple generations. At least. I am going to use it. Don't let that convince you that doing so is a good idea. I am actually going to create three version of Formians. Formian Blues, Formian Clicks, and since I need to give them a tag I recreate the Lawful Nuetral Formians - Formian Reds. The Blues will be the Chaotic Nuetral counterpart - and will have a level breakdown just like the other two. The Clicks are a Prime Material version of a Formian. Complete with the need to eat. After I have finished creating the level breakdowns for these three Formians for general OGL/SRD contribution I intend to continue on begin on the creation of a BST and Wonderful World specific SRD with proper Product Identity declarations.

D20 What? Exactly how much does the preceding three paragraphs have to do with the d20 System License? Absolutely nothing, and that is the lesson here. If you are interested in the d20 System License, and doing what is required to comply with that license please reference the d20 landing page. If you are interested in the D&D System License go right ahead and contact WotC about it. If you are interested in the BST System License - read on faithful one!

Blood Sweat and Tears: Lessons Over.

From here down I am going to simply record the circambulations of unraveling the Formian and putting it back together. I am not going to continue breaking it down into lessons. Its complicated to format the flow that way, and it kinda reads pendantic … which is what I wanted for the opener here. I know what I am doing with the rules here, legally and mechanically. I am a dungeon master - I am showing my work.

Don't Say Savage Species!

From a certain perspective the protocols and the regulations put forward in the Savage Species and the "Monsters As Races" SRD from the Revised Version 3.5 are nie violations of the d20 System License stipulation against referencing Character Creation. The most stringent components of that System License Agreement is regarding the reference of the Core Rulebooks, and the tables that include experience point on them. It must be assumed that the rules for balancing "Monsters" and "Races" and "Classes" can be seen as seperate from "Character Creation" and not only that but a natural and necessary outgrowth of the nature of the Revised Version 3.5 system of Level as a signifigant statistic. It would be possible to create a non-leveled system in which "Character Level" was only signifigant for the purposes of gaining experience and "creating" your character, but the mechanics of the Revised Version 3.5 use Level in various ways as a sort of 7th Score.

Maintaining balance and a certain protocol of "fairness" in the combat or non-combat effectivness of an actor in the world mechanics is somehow necessary despite the capacity of the Master to rewrite the rules. For the very reason that the Master of the game is able to redefine the rules as they see fit behooves "balancing" for "fairness" become part of how the game is played and more than simply part of character creation. The Revised Version 3.5 uses Level, in the form of ECL, LA, and HD, to maintain that balance. There are other OGL SRDs that use Level in an entierly different fashion.

Again I run into "D&D" licensing issues. The "PhB" and "DMG" and "MM" and the philisophical dichotomy of how information is stored in those respective books leads me to say that the Monsters as Races SRD is a DMG type System Document. Similar to Prestige Classes and Magical Items the information regarding how to translate and value adjust a Monster - or any object in the world - in comparison to another Monster is information for the Master of the game. The Players should rest easy in the knowledge that the ECLs and LAs and etc etc et ceteras are well in hand and all is well. Furthermore, the nature of Prestige Classes, Monsters, and Magic Items are (and should be) subject to signifigant setting influences. Prestige Classes often have setting specific Prerequisites, Items should be not just setting but locale specific, and in the best case scenario no two Monsters are exactly alike.

The simple way of saying the above is that the "rules" regarding using monsters as races from the Revised Version 3.5 are intended to make the numbers work out when doing things like Dispelling Magic and making Will Saves. If you can make the numbers work out ome other way - go to it! More power to you!

Formian Hit Die, Challenge Rating, and Skill Points.

And Scores. The Formian Queen has Dash Dash Twenty Twenty Twenty … Twenty. This is absurd! By standard numbers if you were to start out creating an ECL Level adjusted breakdown of the Formian Queen you would say that she gets a plus 10 to her Con, Int, Wis, and Cha. I am … reticent to just jump at that, and look further. Then I notice the Challenge Rating. All of the Challenge Rating for individual Formians are lower than the Hit Die of the Monster. What is going on? I count up the skill points for the Formians and they are not accurate. The Queen isn't missing any points, but the Myrmarch is. The only progressive method I can attribute the Myrmarch's lack of skill points to is Ability Score points spent at 4th, 8th, and 12th to raise intelligence. The problem there is that the Queen must have started at 1st level with a plus twenty to her intelligence, and upon further examination the Myrmarch would have had to do more than put its Ability Score increase points into Intelligence - he would have had to have gained an Intelligence point increase (and a signifigant one) at an early point in its level development.

Then an idea occures to me. What if the Formians were made with the elite array of Monster Ability Scores? I spent a couple hours running the numbers and determined that you are able to get really close to simple straitforward LA+0 Ability Score Adjustments with the Formian worker if you look at them from the elite array. The Ability Score Adjustments for the Formian Worker (a one half CR Monster) are Str+2, Dex+4, Con+2, Int-4 with a flat array. Using the elite array and start the numbers as Str 13, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10. This makes the Ability Score Adjustments Con -2 and Int -2, ignoring that pesky -1 to Charisma. This makes allot more sense for a Monster that is considered a half challenge despite also having a Full HD BAB, two good saves, and not to mention supernatural, spell-like, and extraordinary abilities.

Admittidly the Formian Worker's Challenge Rating seem to be adjusted for the presumption that you will usually run into them in clusters. The hive itself is roughly in line with the numbers set for the Leadership feat, at least the numbers set for Formian Queen encounter. Two to four Formian Workers are considered an challenge for an intro party, but is you were to strip a Formian Worker of its statistics and create a "As a Character" entry for them you get this (minus Level adjustment, ECL, or Favored Class),

+2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -4 Intelligence
Small: As a Small …
Formian Worker base land speed is 40 ft.
Outsider Type: BAB=HD, ??8+ Skill points?? , all good saves.
+4 Natural Armor.
Natural Attack: Bite +1 melee 1d4+StrM.
Immunity to Poison, Petrification, and Cold.
Resistance to Electricity 10, Fire 10, and Sonic 10.
Climbing Legs: Four clawed feet give Formian Workers a +5 on Climb checks.
Racial Skill Penalty: Some 8 Missing Skill Points at 1st Level Outsider!?

Cure Serious Wounds (Sp): Eight Formian Workers together can heal a creature’s wounds as though using the cure serious wounds spell (caster level 7th). This is a full-round action for all eight workers.
Make Whole (Sp): Three Formian Workers together can repair an object as though using the make whole spell (caster level 7th). This is a full-round action for all three workers.
… : A Formian Worker’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Automatic Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: (some). Formian Workers cannot speak, but are able to understand what is said to them and respond.

And of course,
Hive Mind (Ex): All Formians … etc etc etc.

Now. Putting aside for a moment that there are 8 missing skill points - at 1st. As outsiders Formians should also be entitled to .. maybe Darkvision 60? Armor and Weapon Proficiencies? Not that important, but still - further evidence towards the need for a reworking of the Formian from the ground up - not just a leveled breakdown.

Beyond the vageries of categorizing the Damage Reduction bypass ability granted by the Formians Lawful subtype, and the problem with skill points the Formian Worker is ready to be ECL/LAed. For the Formian Worker at least the skill points could be reset to 6+ and come out correct. That at least solves the issue functionally, while lending my mind to think of darker explanations of which I will return to later. The more irregularities I run across with the Formians the more I am urged to take the analysis in a very bizzare direction. I will - but not until the initial version of the Formian leveled breakdown is complete.

Theoretically solving the problem of Formian Worker skill points per HD is could be rendered moot by declaring that as a race Formian Workers replace their starting Outsider HD with Class Level HD. This is actually ideal - as the base Formian Worker only has one HD it is in the best interests of making a race to replace that single HD with the Class HD. The other option is to extrapolate the progression of the Formian Worker to its 3rd HD, make it large, and make modified Outsider HD part of the Formian Worker's ECL … along with Large. I will do both, now.

FORMIAN WORKER ECL: 1 LA: +1 HD: 0
+2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -4 Intelligence
Small: As a Small …
Formian Worker base land speed is 40 ft.
+4 Natural Armor.
Natural Attack: Bite +1 melee 1d4+StrM.
Immunity to Poison, Petrification, and Cold.
Resistance to Electricity 10, Fire 10, and Sonic 10.
Climbing Legs: Four clawed feet give Formian Workers a +5 on Climb checks.
Cure Serious Wounds (Sp): Eight Formian Workers together can heal a creature’s wounds as though using the cure serious wounds spell (caster level 7th). This is a full-round action for all eight workers.
Make Whole (Sp): Three Formian Workers together can repair an object as though using the make whole spell (caster level 7th). This is a full-round action for all three workers.
Outsider: Formian Workers … resurection etc.
Lawful Subtype: A Formian Worker’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Hive Mind (Ex): All Formians … etc etc etc.
Automatic Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: Infernal, Celestial, Axiomatic. Formian Workers cannot speak, but are able to understand what is said to them and respond.
Favored Class: Monk

Of this write up Languages, Favored Class, and of course ECL/LA are debatable. I chose Infernal, Celestial, and Axiomatic due to the Formian's Outsider/Extraplaner origin. I chose Monk due to the Formian's Lawful alignment, and I chose LA +1 due to the Immunities, the all positive physical Ability Scores Adjustments, their base speed, and their Outsider/Extraplaner Type which makes them immune to certain spells.

With three Formian Worker HD we get,

FORMIAN WORKER ECL: 4 LA: +1 HD: 3
+2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -4 Intelligence
Medium: As a Medium …
Racial HD: Formian Workers recieve 3d8 HD with 6+ Int Mod skill points, a +3 BAB, a +3 to Fort, Ref, and Will Saves, and two feats. Formian Worker HD Class Skills are Climb(Str), Craft(Int), Hide(Dex), Listen(Wis), Search(Int), and Spot(Wis).
Formian Worker base land speed is 40 ft.
+4 Natural Armor.
Natural Attack: Bite +1 melee 1d4+StrM.
Immunity to Poison, Petrification, and Cold.
Resistance to Electricity 10, Fire 10, and Sonic 10.
Climbing Legs: Four clawed feet give Formian Workers a +5 on Climb checks.
Cure Serious Wounds (Sp): Eight Formian Workers together can heal a creature’s wounds as though using the cure serious wounds spell (caster level 7th). This is a full-round action for all eight workers.
Make Whole (Sp): Three Formian Workers together can repair an object as though using the make whole spell (caster level 7th). This is a full-round action for all three workers.
Outsider: Formian Workers … resurection etc.
Lawful Subtype: A Formian Worker’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Hive Mind (Ex): All Formians … etc etc etc.
Automatic Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: Infernal, Celestial, Axiomatic. Formian Workers cannot speak, but are able to understand what is said to them and respond.
Favored Class: Monk

An interesting question at this point is: did you notice the errant +1 to the bite attack. This +1 is not accounted for by strength or BAB, and could be ignored. I am however, attempting to create a ECL/LAed version of the Formians that complies with the Revised Version 3.5 SRD. At least I am doing that in addition to creating one that follows the rational logic of the larger system. Thats those two, and glad to be done with them I am. Something is disturbingly wrong with the incongruities of the Formian contruction and I am more and more led to ponder the nature of these inconsistancies.

Before I depart, a note for future updates.

By adjusting the Formian Worker's skill values to the below - the issue of Racial HD Skill points and etc is removed - and replaced with a perfectly reasonable set of statistics.

Climb +10, Craft (any two) +5, Hide +6, Listen +4, Profession (any one) +4, Search +2, Spot +4

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