Fragmented

Class Features

Splitting (Core Feature) (Ex)

(Direct Quotes from Discord Chat) A single split takes a full round action with a long rest cooldown, and every single one is just as good as the prime. Newly split must long rest before splitting themselves.

One of them is the "prime" and has full player control. They control 2 as cohorts at level five, 3 at level ten, and 5 at level fifteen. They can give orders to a number of clones equal to twice their level, and the rest behave like summons or followers as per Leadership.

As they level up, they gain access to Precepts that alter what the swarm can do. There are twelve such Precepts, but they gain only one every 3 levels, meaning one swarm can only ever have eight of them - six per level up, and two awarded as a capstone at level twenty.

No equipment is copied during a split.

Hmm... Precept idea:

swap authority - allows the hive to change the primary body for player control to another body in the swarm

Monty — Yesterday at 11:40 PM

If you check the original post, I was actually intending to have that be default!

Isakai — Yesterday at 11:40 PM

Oh sweet!

Missed that bit

Monty — Yesterday at 11:41 PM

Perhaps at first it had to be via touch, but a precept could increase the range

Precepts allow the swarm to do things like:

Behave like a Swarm (enemy type)

Merging in various ways

Specialize for certain roles within the swarm, thus granting more than just a zerg rush of peasants

Split more often and in different ways.

Imitate other beings or otherwise modify the perceived state of drones or the whole swarm.

Better manage Swarm Deviancy (more on this later)

And then there's Swarm Deviancy. Once you reach a number of drones in your swarm (not counting Cohorts) greater than [ (LVL + 2)^2 ] your swarm starts to lose coherency, directives become confused and deviants may begin to form in place of once-good drones. Each split-cycle, there is a chance that the deviancy of the swarm may rise, which is expressed as the number of deviants in the swarm. The chance and percentage of new drones made deviant is equal to the percentage of deviants out of the total swarm. The Deviancy percentage of a swarm cannot go below 20% if the swarm is larger than the total allowed size for the controllers' level, but is zero otherwise.

[11:43 PM]

Precepts may be taken to more easily manage Swarm Deviancy. However by default, Deviants must be culled by good drones.

Precept: Specialization (Combat) - Can make Drones with 3/4 BAB instead of your own.

Precept: Skill Link - Clones within 5 feet can provide stacking Help to any skill check.

Deviants:

1. I was thinking that it would change like a rival hive mind. So it'd change like the weather
2. Worse Confusion

[Precept idea from Isa] Mage mimic: Choose one arcane or divine spellcasting class (adhering to any alignment restrictions of said class). For the purposes of UMD, and qualifying for feats, your split cohorts are treated as having a caster level in that class equal to their level.