Ideas on how to create an Evil/Undead/Fallen Druid type?

[JW86]

Hello,

I'm just seeking some brainstorming for ideas on how to create a 'fallen druid' kind of character. A friend of mine is considering joining our campaign and has an idea in mind of playing as a Raven (literally, race Raven) or at very least being Wildshaped into one the majority of the time.

I think he is looking along the lines of being/controlling undead, maybe having an undead animal companion, generally being a dark druid of the deeps.. perhaps representing the "death and ending" aspect of the cycle of nature.

I'm just trying to get general ideas on how we could possibly help him make this ingame.

Perhaps Necropolitan Raven, playing a Neutral Evil Druid and taking Corrupted Wildshape/Undead Leadership? Are there any classes or prestige classes which would suit this kind of idea? I've heard mention of classes for corrupted druid, vermin-themed casters, etc. - any suggestions that are creepy, crawly, dark, undead nature related are very welcome.

Secondary importance to controlling undead (although I know wizards/clerics) are better at this. Perhaps Undead Leadership?

At this stage, all ideas are welcome - just getting ideas!

Many thanks

[JW86]

(Note to self - http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-318770.html contains useful info)

[eggynack]

Well, blighter from complete divine makes sense for the whole fallen undead druid shtick on pretty much every level, but that class kinda sucks. Instead, maybe consider talontar blightlord from unapproachable east. Fits the flavor a bit worse, but you don't lose all of your druid casting in the process. Works well on a one or two level dip. For the reanimation stuff, there're a few options. Best for this situation is likely myconid sovereign form (MM II, 154), which grants access to plant zombies, and yellow musk creeper (FF, 190) does a somewhat worse thing on a somewhat better body later in the game.

For some vermin theming, maybe pick up child of winter (ECS, 51) for summoning and a vestment of verminshape (DMG II, 273) for the forms. Finally, for the raven part, I'd advise anthropomorphic raven (SS, 215), which is excellent for druids, especially if you go by the text rather than the table which grants a +6 to wisdom. Otherwise he'd be getting a +4, but that's still pretty great. Maybe toss on dragonborn (RotD, 8) for bonus points. Not necessary, but pretty sweet.

Edit: It appears I've swordsage'd myself. That's a new one. Ah well, some of this stuff is different.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Anthropomorphic Raven from Savage Species page 214-217 is a small monstrous humanoid with a +0 LA, its one racial hit die will be replaced by his first class level. It gets Str -6, Dex +2, Wis +4, Cha -4, a 10 ft. land speed, and a 30 ft. (poor) fly speed.

A Hengeyokai from Oriental Adventures has the ability to change into a particular animal, you could use the Sparrow version and adapt it to become a Raven instead. That has a +1 LA, which can be bought off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm).

In any case, Druid is not the best class to use for this type of character. They're good at destroying undead, not controlling them, because undead are unnatural and Druids are dedicated to preserving the natural world. A fallen druid wouldn't be of any benefit, unless he went into a specific prestige class designed for this such as Blighter or Ur-Priest in Complete Divine. You could just use a different class to represent the capabilities he has, and flavor it to match his character concept. An Archivist (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3) who focuses his Knowledge skills on Nature, Religion, maybe the Planes, and maybe Dungeoneering, and picks spells consistent with his theme, it could easily be exactly the character he wants. Another option would be a Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror, which is a Cha-based arcane spellcaster that has a very strong focus on necromancy spells and commanding undead minions. A (Cloistered (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric)) Cleric with the Plant and Animal domains could also be an option to represent what he wants the character to do. It really depends on what he wants the character's capabilities to include, but you can make him a raven by just picking a particular race.

[ZamielVanWeber]

The 3.5 update to OA in Dragon Magazine removed Hengeyokai's level adjustment. Normally YMMV but without it Hengeyokai is a unique type with no rules (shapechanger); the update gave them an actual type humanoid (shapechanger).

[fishyfishyfishy]

I have a BBEG in my Eberron game that fulfills this theme. He is a Lich Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 10 with the feats Child of Winter, Nightbringer Initiate, Fell Drain Spell, Natural Spell, Corrupted Wild Shape, Craft Wondrous Item, Life Sense, Fell Animate Spell, and Fell Frighten Spell (he has flaws for the last two feats).

He's basically a druid that believes the world is a vile and corrupt place that must be purged with the darkness of Mabar, the plane of negative energy, before it can be reborn anew. He is actively trying to merge the two planes together. The abilities granted by Planar Shepherd and the new spells from Child of Winter and Nightbringer Initiate make him much more versatile than you would expect. He employs creatures like various types of undead (mostly Shadows), Yugoloths, Barghests, and Shadow Mastiffs as minions, and he can take on many different forms of creatures native to Mabar and gain their unique abilities.

[JW86]

Thank you for the suggestions.

Upon sharing some of the ideas here with him, he is shifting his focus a bit. He wants to specifically be a Raven, not an Anthropomorphic Raven. This means he is no longer eligible for Necropolitan, nor Corrupted Wildshape (unless there are alternative ways of making a Raven Undead?). He is now turning his attention away from "Undead" and more towards being "Fallen".

I'm not too sure what to suggest now with an concept like that. Just go with a NE Druid with focus on nasty sounding spells? Perhaps go into Planar Shephard - what are the selling points of that PrC (except for time plane exploits, not allowed)? I think he was asking about alternative classes to Druid to fit the fluff, perhaps even a Psion.. hard for me to keep up. Are there other interesting "Wildshape" feats one could take as a Raven? :)


Many thanks for the feats, will look into them. :)

[Andry]

Kenku might work for him if he gives up the Raven idea.

[TheGeckoKing]

The Tainted Druid (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20030428a) feat can be taken at 1st Level and transforms you from a Regular Druid to a full-blown Fiendish Druid, without having to dabble with Planar Shepherding. Heck, the remit that "All of your spells and abilities that normally apply to animals now apply only to animals, vermin, or beasts that have the fiendish template." is so large that you don't need to do any updating to 3.5 or fiddle with compatibility with PrC's - it's it's a furry critter you have anything to do with, it gets horns.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Thank you for the suggestions.

Upon sharing some of the ideas here with him, he is shifting his focus a bit. He wants to specifically be a Raven, not an Anthropomorphic Raven. This means he is no longer eligible for Necropolitan, nor Corrupted Wildshape (unless there are alternative ways of making a Raven Undead?). He is now turning his attention away from "Undead" and more towards being "Fallen".

I'm not too sure what to suggest now with an concept like that. Just go with a NE Druid with focus on nasty sounding spells? Perhaps go into Planar Shephard - what are the selling points of that PrC (except for time plane exploits, not allowed)? I think he was asking about alternative classes to Druid to fit the fluff, perhaps even a Psion.. hard for me to keep up. Are there other interesting "Wildshape" feats one could take as a Raven? :)


Many thanks for the feats, will look into them. :)

If he's cool with taking classes other than druid then the suggestions of cleric (with appropriate domains) and Archivist both work perfectly fine with this concept. You lose the ability to wildshape, but it sounds like that's not necessary if he can be a Raven some other way. An Awakened Raven is an option, if not a very optimal one.

[Zubrowka74]

Seriously, you could simply build some necromancer and fluff it as a former druid. It's really all that simple, unless you insist on keeping the druid's mechanics. Flavor is flavor!

[Sam K]

Just a concept, dunno how viable it is:

What about a plauge druid? A druid who watched their chosen land become devastated by plauge, and decided that clearly the ultimate life form was diseases. Now he tries to speread infection as his demented way to serve nature.

If your DM is open to homebrew, maybe he could make a feat based on exalted wild shape that lets him add another template when he wildshapes into an animal? And he could take mother cyst and refluff it as a disease rather than a necrotic thing.

[eggynack]

Just a concept, dunno how viable it is:

What about a plauge druid? A druid who watched their chosen land become devastated by plauge, and decided that clearly the ultimate life form was diseases. Now he tries to speread infection as his demented way to serve nature.

If your DM is open to homebrew, maybe he could make a feat based on exalted wild shape that lets him add another template when he wildshapes into an animal? And he could take mother cyst and refluff it as a disease rather than a necrotic thing.
Talontar blightlord fits this flavor quite well, though you don't gain any nifty wild shape ability, or even advancement. The class is mostly a more expensive version of holt warden, but it has a lot of disease related abilities.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I played a character that was a Divine Minion (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a) of Anhur, which can free-action Wild Shape into a lion and back at will. I played him as an actual extraplanar lion who could assume a humanoid form to 'fit in' and interact better.

He could make a Divine Minion of Isis (NG), but say he's 'fallen' and replace the hawk form with a raven form. Isis is the god of family, magic, storms, and water, so it would be very fitting for him to be a druid.

In this case he should take Naturalized Denizen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm#naturalizedDenizen). I would give him that as a bonus feat to represent that he's been cast out of his deity's home plane, especially considering switching from hawk to raven is a downgrade mechanically.

Allow him to buy off the level adjustment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm), which costs 3,000 xp at his 3rd class level. He'll eventually catch back up because he'll get more xp per encounter for being lower level.

If you want to use alternate rules, he could go into Tainted Sorcerer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer), which could make his humanoid form appear quite ghoulish.

Consider this druid variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid) if he doesn't want to ever use his wild shape class feature, which also benefits an unarmored character. You may also consider using a reverse of the fey bard variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bard), giving up his animal companion, nature sense, resist nature's lure, and wild empathy in exchange for gaining bardic knowledge, inspire courage, inspire competence, inspire greatness, and inspire heroics. From there you can trade bardic knowledge for bardic knack in PH2, inspire courage for inspire awe in Dragon Magic, and one of the others for haunting melody in ECS. Trade out Handle Animal for Perform as a class skill, and he can take Melodic Casting in CM. Trading nature abilities for music and lore abilities is fitting for someone who was originally a servant of Isis, but he would be using his songs to inspire fear. A druid doesn't normally get daily uses of bardic music, but I would give him 1/3 his level rounded down, which he wouldn't be able to use for anything but those particular items (no Lyric Spell).

[DrMotives]

If you don't want to use awakened raven, there's 2 other choices I can think of. Frostburn has a giant raven, which like the giant owl & eagle is a large magical beast with speech and average PC intelligence. Also there's the ravenkin race from Ravenloft, although that's been let out to a 3rd party publisher in 3e. Ravenkin are basically small awakened ravens. I actually a ravenkin channeler in a 2e campaign way back when, the PC stats were put out in Dragon magazine. Channelers were the sorcerers of 2e, although they had fewer spells per day instead of more. My ravenkin channeler would spend time disguising itself as a halfling wizard, letting its natural form be a way to disappear and fool people.

[atemu1234]

Maybe an Anthropomorphic Raven? Considered very good, optimization-wise.

[Raven777]

From Pathfinder, the Siabrae (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/siabrae-cr-2), a Druidic Lich template.