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+6 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -2 Con, -2 Str, -2 Cha- A swarm of goblins is incredibly fast, and good at coming to the correct decision, but let's face it- no one loves them.
Medium: A swarm of goblins is treated as a Medium creature.
30 Foot Landspeed: A swarm of goblins is pretty normal in this regard.
Darkvision: A swarm of goblins can see in the dark up to 60 feet.
Slight Build: When it is advantageous for them, a swarm of goblins is treated as one size smaller than they actually are.
Swarming Attack: A swarm of goblins is 4 tiny creatures. Therefore, each creature may wield weapons as appropriate for its size. The swarm has as many attacks as 4 tiny creatures would normally have. Feats that alter the size or number of weapons a creature can wield are assessed on a per goblin basis.
For example, the swarm is normally able to wield 4 tiny longswords. If it were to take the feat Two Weapon Fighting, it would then be able to wield 4 longswords and 4 daggers
Swarming Defense: When acting as a group, a swarm of goblins is incredibly difficult to hit. They have a natural +2 dodge bonus to armor and to their CMD. However, some combat maneuvers have special outcomes:
Grapple: One of the goblins is grappled. He now uses his own CMD based on his tiny size, and without the swarm dodge bonus.
Trip: One of the goblins is tripped. He is prone in the swarm's square, and considered separated from them until he rejoins.
Swarm Tactics: A swarm of goblins may separate in to its constituent parts (4 tiny goblins). Each of these goblins is treated as having the BAB, saves, feats, and skills of the swarm. Additionally, these goblins are treated as tiny in all regards; they do not possess the "Slight Build" trait when separated. These goblins also have 1/4 the hitpoints of the swarm, but for all other purposes are treated as having the same Constitution score.
A swarm can be reformed from any two components. It is a free action to reform the swarm, but the components involved must occupy the same square.
Should one of the goblins die (and this can only occur when the swarm is separated; otherwise, they're treated as dying together), the swarm is inflicted with a negative level that cannot be cured until the dead goblin is replaced, and loses 1/4 of its hit points and the attacks belonging to the dead goblin. The swarm can replace the dead goblin by spending 1000*level to attract a new member. As long as 1 member of a swarm remains, the swarm may be rebuilt.
If a swarm of goblins should happen to have spellcasting abilities, these abilities are used by the whole swarm. No single member of a goblin swarm is capable of casting a spell on his or her own; only together can they manage it. Any 1 goblin may be responsible for any one component, and the spell may originate from any goblin of the swarm. If the swarm is reduced to one goblin, it may not cast until it gains a new member.
Hive Mind: A swarm of goblins is the ultimate example of communism. The goblins share in everything equally, right down to wealth and armor. Thus, when outfitting a swarm of goblins, you may treat them as a medium creature for the purposes of armor, weapons, and magical items. There is some magic about the swarm that reduces these objects to four usable forms for each of the goblins.
As a side note, I'd really recommend keeping two separate character sheets if you're playing this race, one for the swarm and one for an individual goblin.
They should go undercover by standing on top of each other in a long jacket.
This would make a pretty good rogue. I see them being able to make 8 sneak attacks at level 1, by throwing tiny daggers with a pretty good chance to hit. That could take out entire encounters in the surprise round.
It seems very expensive to replace goblins at lower levels.
Perhaps make it cheaper by a skill check?
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They should go undercover by standing on top of each other in a long jacket.
This would make a pretty good rogue. I see them being able to make 8 sneak attacks at level 1, by throwing tiny daggers with a pretty good chance to hit. That could take out entire encounters in the surprise round.
It seems very expensive to replace goblins at lower levels.
Perhaps make it cheaper by a skill check?
Hm... you're right about the expense, but I want it to feel like a loss at higher levels, too. Maybe I'll change it to the permanent loss of level*100 XP, and a new goblin joins you in three days.
Also, I just realized- I was handling the way weapons are wielded incorrectly; they were basically getting free TWF for every goblin. I will be editing the OP to reflect that.
I'll look into seeing if my DM will let me use this. Any tweaks you would recommend for transitioning it to 3.5 from PF?
It shouldn't take that much to convert them to 3.5; I think the only thing that must be converted is the CMD bonus. I'd change it to read as "when subject to a special attack option that includes a size modifier, the swarm is treated as medium in size," and then continue with the special grapple/trip cases. The only other area I can see converting is the stat modifiers; you can go pretty much any which way with these. I would definitely recommend keeping the high Dexterity bonus, and the Strength penalty, but you could reasonably swap Wisdom and Charisma, and take or leave the Con penalty. Right now they've got a +2 net stat bonus; to fix this my first recommendation would be to adjust to -4 Strength, if the net bonus would be a problem.
This race looks amazing.
One note though- how does combat work?
For example if i had a BaB of 9/4 would I get 8 attacks, 4 at +9 and 4 at +4 or would i get two attacks that does 4 times the damage of a tiny weapon?
Hey! I just popped in because I actually faced down a very similar idea earlier, and I found a very nice, complete set of rules regarding the whole 'playing a swarm' thing. I highly reccommend taking a look at this monster class for details. He handles it very well, and I'm sure you can tweak it to your purposes.
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[PF] Swarm o' Goblins (Homebrew Race, PEACH)
