SWARM

Prerequisite: Alien

This trait is used to represent lots of small creatures – say, a hundred crawling Cybermites or hundreds of Vashta Nerada – where it’s easier to treat the whole group as a single creature, called a Swarm. The value in brackets after the Swarm trait determines how dangerous it is – the higher the number, the more attacking creatures there are in the Swarm. A Swarm makes one attack roll each round, and then makes a number of hits equal to its trait value. Furthermore, add this score directly to its Coordination + Fighting. Each hit inflicts normal damage for a creature in the Swarm. It can hit a single target multiple times, or split its attacks. Characters attacked can make Resistance rolls as normal (remember there’s a penalty for multiple reactions in a round, so a character trying to dodge or parry a Swarm will be rapidly overwhelmed.) If a character is wearing armour, it only applies against half the Swarm’s attacks (unless it is some sort of full-body armour). If a character gets hit by 5 or more attacks in one round, and their armour isn’t strong enough to protect them, then don’t bother rolling – that’s ‘covered in carnivorous beasties and skeletonised’ territory unless the character spends Story Points to escape. Most attacks on a Swarm are pointless – a character might be able to squish one bug, but that does no good if you’re being attacked by hundreds of them. Unless you’ve got a flamethrower or another area effect weapon handy, the best strategy is to run.