Cat Swarm?

[Grogg of the North]

I'm helping a DM create a swarm of feral cats. Yea, I realize that's a lot of cats but ... um ... MAGIC!

Anyhoo, my google/book-fu is weak. I can't find any decent rules on creating swarms. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My one thought is to just take a rat swarm and say that they're now cats; make filth fever into cat scratch fever and call it day.

 

[urLordy]

Funny coincidence... I just read literally yesterday about a cat swarm in the book Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Here's a good link: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10466.0

 

[Celebrim]

My one thought is to just take a rat swarm and say that they're now cats; make filth fever into cat scratch fever and call it day.

Because of the small differences in the stat blocks of a rat and a cat, that's more or less true. After applying a template you'll end up with something almost exactly like a Rat Swarm. The big difference is that Cats have twice the HD, so it would make sense if the swarm had more HD too, but... swarm HD seems pretty arbitrarily chosen. You'd could always say that more HD in this case means fewer bodies.

Take the Rat Swarm

Str: +1
Chr: +4
New Skill List (note, lack of swim, leading swarm of cats into water could destroy swarm)
Balance +10, Climb +6, Hide +16*, Jump +10,
Listen +5, Move Silently +8, Spot +5

Personally I'd leave it at 4HD and call it a go.

 

[Wicht]

Cats can swim, but I would think that cats in water would get a mini-rage, increasing swarm damage.

 

[Celebrim]

Cats can swim, but I would think that cats in water would get a mini-rage, increasing swarm damage.

Cats can swim IRL. But per the SRD, cats in the D&D universe cannot swim well. In fact, with a Swim skill of -4, cats are actually pretty likely to drown in calm water. This may be considered an oversight, and you could correct it, but as written, cats that fall into water generally drown.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Good grief, that's horrible.

Considering the substantial risk to a village from a single cat, a cat swarm could depopulate and entire kingdom!

 

[GMMichael]

Pretty sure that Cityscape has a Pest Swarm monster, some of which are already cats.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I would think a cat swarm would be as busy trying to kill itself as it was other creatures.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Pathfinder has the swarm Mad Monkeys. Perhaps that could be modified with cats?