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Iituem
2007-02-15, 03:12 PM
The Dire Druid

This requires some explanation. In the campaign from which this is based, dire creatures are inherently destructive and chaotic corruptions of true animals. Dire is effectively a plague in that world and thus is opposed by most druids. The dire druid is a corruption of the standard druid, one who has fallen from the path of balance and instead embraced the power of the dire.

Requirements

Skills: Knowledge (nature) 13 ranks

Spells: Able to cast at least divine spells from the druid, ranger or other nature-related spell list.

Alignment: Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil.


Dire Druid
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spells

1st|
+0|
+2|
+0|
+2|Command Dire|-

2nd|
+1|
+3|
+0|
+3|Dire Shape|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

3rd|
+2|
+3|
+1|
+3|-|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

4th|
+3|
+4|
+1|
+4|Venom|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

5th|
+3|
+4|
+1|
+4|-|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

6th|
+4|
+5|
+2|
+5|Heart and Head|-

7th|
+5|
+5|
+2|
+5|-|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

8th|
+6|
+6|
+2|
+6|Rotten Heart|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

9th|
+6|
+6|
+3|
+6|-|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

10th|
+7|
+7|
+3|
+7|Dire Tree|+1 level of existing spellcasting class [/table]


Proficiencies: The dire druid gains no armour or weapon proficiencies (although at 4th level she gains unarmed weapon proficiency).

Restrictions: A character may never progress in druid levels after taking this prestige class.


Spells: Where noted, the character gains spells as if she had gained a level in her previous natural divine caster class, but no other abilities associated with that class (except as noted).


Special: All cure spells become inflict spells. Any animal companions the character possesses must either be killed or become dire and the character can only have dire animal companions. The character's restrictions on maximum HD of animal companions owned still apply, although she may count her dire druid levels as part of the levels determining the maximum HD of animal companions she may travel with. She may no longer use animal friendship to gain animal companions and must instead make command dire checks. She also regains all the druid spells and abilities she lost from change of alignment.


Command Dire: The dire druid may attempt to command dire creatures three times per day plus her Charisma modifier. This works as the cleric's rebuke undead ability, save that it uses her natural divine caster level instead of cleric levels to determine turning damage. Dire creatured controlled in this way count towards her animal companion HD limit.


Dire Shape: The dire druid may assume the shape of a dire creature using wild shape. She gains no additional usages per day of the ability. Additionally, dire creatures recognise you as one of their own in assumed or natural form and will not attack unprovoked (though they will not necessarily obey you either).


Venom: Extended experience with the corruption and potency of dire affords the dire druid a shadow of its power. The dire druid gains proficiency with unarmed attacks, which now do either subdual or normal damage at her behest and no longer provokes an attack of opportunity. If she does normal damage with an unarmed attack, she also secretes an injury poison with a resistance DC equal to the character's natural divine caster level + the dire druid's Constitution modifier that does 1d4 Str primary damage and 1d6 Str secondary damage.

Alternatively, the druid may secrete enough venom to coat a weapon with a single application of the poison. She cannot secrete venom for 1d4 rounds afterwards. Secretion and coating is a move-equivalent action that provokes an attack of opportunity. The venom retains potency for 1 minute after secretion.


Heart and Head: The dire druid splits her essence into two parts; her heart and her head, gaining from this transformation a shadow of immortality. So long as one part of her essence survives, the other cannot die. Upon death of her physical form her heart is vanquished and her head becomes free. The essence of her head flees into the nearest dire creature. If there are no dire creatures within 400ft+40ft/level her essence instead flees into the nearest animal or non-magical beast. If there are no animals or non-magical beasts within 1 mile, she dies.

If she inhabits a dire creature, she effectively loses all of her class abilities (although she keeps any prepared spells) but keeps her mental ability scores, taking on the physical ability scores and any special abilities of the beast in question. She retains all of her memories and knowledge and gains complete control of the form she inhabits.

If she inhabits an animal she retains her knowledge but loses any class features and prepares spells. She does not automtically control the animal but can force it to take a certain course of action with an opposed Charisma check (the animal gets a +5 bonus to resist).

She remains within the creature for 1 week, during which a slow transformation occurs within it. The creature displays signs of illness within this period, starting 4 hours after she first inhabits it. At the end of the week, her heart has fully reformed within the creature and the creature dies, its body transforming into the character's original form. She loses 1 level as a result of the transformation; this level cannot be returned by any means, even a wish or miracle.

If the creature the dire druid inhabits is killed before the week ends the process is ruined and the dire druid dies. If break enchantment is cast upon the creature the dire druid's essence is forced from it and will inhabit the nearest dire creature or animal following the same restrictions as above, though the process of forming a new heart will take another full week. The freed creature will make a full recovery from its apparent illness.

The dire druid no longer takes penalties from aging (though bonuses still accrue) and will die of old age when her time runs out.


Rotten Heart: The dire druid permanently binds the essence of her heart into a tree. The tree is corrupted with the essence of dire and gains hardness 20 (although holy weapons reduce this hardness to 5) and spell resistance equal to the dire druid's caster level + her Charisma bonus (if any). The heart of the tree rots away but the trunk remains four inches thick (giving the tree 40 hitpoints at any one point). Should the trunk ever be broken into or the tree die, a swollen and misshapen beating black heart will be found within the hollow. It has 5 hit points, a size bonus to AC of +4 and when destroyed vanquishes the heart of the dire druid. The essence of the head must be vanquished separately. When both are vanquished, the druid dies.

If the druid's natural form is killed the essence of her head is released and flees back to her heart. Within 1d10 days the essence of the head reforms and a new body is created for it to inhabit. Unlike before, the druid suffers no level loss for a return to life in this manner. During the days before the essence of the head has reformed, it counts as vanquished.

If the tree is destroyed, the dire druid cannot stray more than 40ft from the black heart or suffer penalties as below. She must bind the essence of her heart to a new tree within a fortnight or permanently lose 1 level (this level cannot be returned by any means, even a wish or miracle). Binding takes 8 hours, provided the druid has the physical heart at hand, after which the new tree becomes corrupted as the old one. The druid must have the heart at hand to complete the process. If she is slain before she can re-bind the heart and the heart remains intact, her body reforms within 1 week and she permanently loses a level (as above). It reforms wherever the heart may be, which may prove problematic. If she is slain and the heart is destroyed, she dies.

If the heart is destroyed and the druid's form is still intact, the druid immediately loses 1 level (that cannot be returned by any means, even a wish or miracle) and no longer suffers penalties from being distant from the heart. She must reform the essence of her heart within a new tree within 1 week or die. The reformation process takes 3 days without a physical heart, after which the tree becomes corrupted as the original tree and she suffers the usual penalties for straying. If she is slain before the essence is reformed, she dies.

If the druid is reduced to a level that would not allow her to bind her heart to a tree, her heart will reform within her body within 1 week and she will regain the previous benefits of a separate heart and head. If she is slain within this period, she dies.

Binding the essence of the heart for the first time is a process that takes one full week of focused ritual during which time the dire druid can undertake no other strenuous actions besides the ritual itself (which takes 8 hours per day). The dire druid must expend 4,800xp at the completion of the ritual. In addition, three unique animals, beasts or magical beasts that serve as symbols or paragons of the natural world must be captured and sacrificed at the culmination of the ritual (each creature must be of CR 18 or more) in order to cement the druid's connection to the dire. Subsequent bindings do not incur any of these costs. Interruption of the ritual at any stage results in its failure and any unique beasts slain are wasted for its purposes. Until a dire druid conducts this ritual, he is considered to still operate under the rules for Heart and Head and is neither subject to distance restrictions nor free from level loss upon reincarnation.

The binding comes at a price. The druid's natural form becomes the vessel for the essence of her head and can never stray more than 20ft/character level from the tree or a dire creature (including her animal companions). If she passes beyond this limit, she takes 1 point of damage per minute spent beyond the limit, suffers a -1 morale penalty to all attack rolls, checks and saves and feels an intense compulsion to return to the nearest dire creature or her tree. This damage cannot be healed until she returns to within the required range. If she is killed by the damage, the essence of her head returns to the tree for reformation as normal.

The druid can travel with dire creatures, provided she remains within the range, but should the dire creatures be slain and she is not within range of another or her tree she automatically begins taking distance penalties as normal.

The dire druid will no longer die from old age, provided she can remain bound to different trees throughout her lifetime. If she remains unbound to a tree for more than two weeks, she begins to age again.


Dire Tree: The dire druid can corrupt living trees into dire forms, twisting them into black and misshapen monstrosities. Although the transformation is not as potent as the one that corrupt's the dire druid's heart tree, corrupted trees gain hardness 15 (hardness 5 against holy weapons) and spell resistance 10. Their heart rots away, leaving 2 inches of thickness in the trunk (20 hit points). The dire druid can remain within 20ft/character level of a dire tree and not suffer distance penalties. She may pass between dire trees (including her heart tree) via spells such as transport via plants or tree stride (dire trees of any type have a range of 2000ft and normal druids cannot pass through them). Corrupting a tree takes 4 hours of focused meditation that cannot be interrupted or the whole process fails.



Sample spells the Dire Druid has access to:

Corrupt Animal
Transmutation
Level: Drd 3
Components: V, S, M, XP
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Target: One or more animals touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude
Spell Resistance: No

This spell corrupts a rat, bat, badger or weasel into their dire forms, placing them under your control. They will follow your spoken commands and remain dire for the rest of their lives. Other animals may be corrupted, so long as their dire forms are about as powerful as the dire creatures mentioned (DM's discretion).
Regardless of the type of dire creature created with this spell, you can only create as many HD of dire creatures as twice your caster level in a single casting of this spell. If cast within 400ft of a dire tree, this limit is doubled.
The dire creatures you create remains under your control as long as they remain alive. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can only control 4HD of dire creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all new creatures fall under your control and any excess dire creatures from previous castings are released (you can choose which). Any dire creatures created with this spell do not count towards your limit of animal companions.

Material Component: The animals to be corrupted.

Experience Component: 2XP per Hit Die of the animals you intend to corrupt.


Create Dire
Transmutation
Level: Drd 6
Components: V, S, M, XP
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Close (25ft + 5ft/2 levels)
Target: One animal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will
Spell Resistance: No

A rather more potent spell than corrupt animal, this spell allows you to create more powerful types of dire creature; apes, wolverines, wolves and boars. The following types of dire creature can be created by casters of the specified levels:
{table=head]Caster Level|Dire Creature Created
11 or lower|
Dire ape

12-13|
Dire wolf

14-15|
Dire wolverine

16+|
Dire boar[/table]

You may create less powerful dire creatures than your level would indicate if you choose. Dire creatures are not automatically under your control and must be commanded during or after creation. Commanded dire creatures count towards your animal companion limit. The DM may allow creation of other forms of dire creatures, so long as their power levels are in line with those allowed for this spell.

Material Component: The animals to be corrupted.

Experience Component: 5XP per Hit Die of the animals you intend to corrupt.


Create Greater Dire
Transmutation
Level: Drd 8
Components: V, S, M, XP
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Close (25ft + 5ft/2 levels)
Target: One animal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will
Spell Resistance: No

As create dire, except that this spell allows you to create more powerful dire creatures. The type of dire creature created is based on your level. The DM may allow different types of dire creature, provided they are within the power limits allowed by this spell.
{table=head]Caster Level|Dire Creature Created
15 or lower|
Dire lion

16|
Dire bear

17|
Dire tiger

18+|
Dire shark[/table]

You may create less powerful dire creatures than your level would indicate if you choose. Dire creatures are not automatically under your control and must be commanded during or after creation. Commanded dire creatures count towards your animal companion limit.

Material Component: The animals to be corrupted.

Experience Component: 5XP per Hit Die of the animals you intend to corrupt.


Corrupt Terrain
Transmutation
Level: Drd 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: One Day
Range: Touch
Target: 10ft/level radius emanating from the touched point
Duration: Special (see text)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell seeds a region with dire influence, slowly corrupting it into a darker, twisted form. Provided the initial ritual is not interrupted, all plant life and resident creatures (but not ones simply passing through) within the range of the spell mutate and become darker and more terrible versions of their former selves. Trees become blackened, ugly husks with rotted cores, their branches interlacing in such a way as to block out the light. What lesser plants survive become harsher and often sprout thorns, some taking on carnivorous traits. Fungi become plentiful, if poisonous. Resident creatures become dire creatures. The entire process takes 3 months. If the spell hallow is cast within the region before the process is completed, the process is reversed within the area of the hallow spell and cannot be corrupted again for a year and a day. If the process runs to its completion, the plants and animals within the region become permanently dire and must be destroyed completely (e.g. by razing to the ground) and hallow cast over the tainted soil if the region is ever to grow natural life again.

Dire plant and animal life reproduces aggressively. The region will grow at twice its usual rate, consuming nearby plantlife in its wake.

In addition, the region has the following effects:
First, rangers who have not taken the dire druid prestige class cannot track through dire regions.
Second, the nature sense, woodland stride and trackless step abilities of druids are nullified within the dire region.
Third, transport via plants and tree stride do not function within the corrupted region (beginning as soon as the initial ritual is completed). Dire druids may access the region by those spells as normal.
Finally, dire druids whose heart essence is bound to a dire tree may remain within 20ft/character level of dire region that is at least 1 month into the corruption process without suffering distance penalties.

Material Component: 5000gp in specially prepared venom or bile extracted from a dire creature.

Druid
2007-02-15, 04:54 PM
You should change the the spell casting progression to something more regular, like +1 level at every level but first and sixth. As it is now the spellcasting can't be progressed into epic.[/nitpick]

The venom DC should advace with the druids level. As is it will, at higher levels, be nothing more than an anoyance to the DM who has to roll a bunch of extra saves every round.

Iituem
2007-02-15, 05:14 PM
I considered that. I'm tempted to put it as level + Con modifier. Think that'd work out? Also, adjusted spell progression.

martyboy74
2007-02-15, 05:21 PM
Is there no limit to "Dire Treeing"? Could a Dire Druid technically corrupt every tree they see? Also, is there anyway to stop the corruption of trees, aside from killing them.

Iituem
2007-02-15, 05:29 PM
Whoops. Thought I'd already put that limitation in (must have been erased during my last edit). Corrupting a tree takes 4 hours of focused meditation. There is no way to cure a dire tree that has been corrupted, short of destroying it.

So yes, a dire druid could corrupt any trees he sees, it would just take a little time. Given he could possibly manage two trees a day, corrupting the forest might take a bit longer.

Edit: Have added a spell that corrupts a region over a long period of time. Enjoy!

martyboy74
2007-02-15, 06:02 PM
Does the animal and plant life spread into the hallowed area, or is that permanently "out of bounds" for the corruption effect?

Iituem
2007-02-15, 08:20 PM
Hmm. Good point. I'll rule that it prevents dire contamination for a year and a day.

Jothki
2007-02-15, 10:17 PM
It seems odd to have both Heart and Head and Rotten Heart. If I were playing one I'd actually prefer to ignore Rotten Heart and just use Heart and Head, since you can easily scatter Dire Rats (or just use the normal fauna if you don't want to take the risk of them being spotted) and such everywhere and order them to remain out of sight, allowing you to wander freely through towns and cities. When you use Rotten Heart, you are forced to carry around a Dire animal on your person, even if you don't care about the risk of dying.

Iituem
2007-02-16, 03:06 AM
Ah, well. That's a story-based modification. The primarily villain of the campaign, a charming fellow named the Summoner, was kitted out in this way - he had first split his heart and his head, then bound his heart in such a way as to become immortal. He could only travel where dire creatures or dire trees existed, such was the price of his power. Naturally, he decided to just try and take over the world to counter this problem.

Mechanics-wise, it's the difference between being given free raise deads and liche-like resurrections. You can resurrect freely with 'heart and head' but lose a level each time. You can resurrect freely without level loss with 'rotten heart' (the tree becomes your phylactery, after a fashion) but suffer being bound.

To use your example, however, you could still seed a city with dire rats so that you could pass freely throughout it if you had 'rotten heart'. You just need to get to the city with some dire creatures to travel with you to get there in the first place.

Jothki
2007-02-16, 12:26 PM
Do all trees within a corrupted region become Dire Trees?

Iituem
2007-02-16, 01:35 PM
Yes, but not with the hardness bonuses conferred to ritualistically corrupted dire trees. They can still be used for tree stride purposes as dire trees and dire druids can remain near them without penalties as with ritualistic dire trees. Corrupting a region is thus a very effective way for a dire druid to overcome his movement penalties after attaining the more potent form of immortality, as well as harrying the efforts of true druids to get in his way.

Have added an amendment to Rotten Heart that specifies that until the dire druid purposefully binds his heart essence for the first time, he still acts as if under the normal Heart and Head rules and suffers no distance penalties. This should allow a dire druid intending to take the Rotten Heart path (and thus become immortal and no longer subject to death by age) to build up a secure enough region of dire terrain to provide a stronghold.

Have also added liche-like costs for rotten heart construction, because it seems those were missing from the final version as well. This should become a little more balanced now. Assuming the treasure guideline of a CR 18 monster is more than 40,000gp, this equates to the 120,000gp required of a liche.