Running my first campaign, and needing some advice (3.5)

[MairsilFinn]

This is my first post here, so I apologize if I'm placing this in the wrong section of the forums. Basically, I'm looking for some advice for running my first 3.5 campaign. I'll provide some information below about how things have gone so far after the first day, and why exactly I'm looking for advice.

I have 6 players in my game right now. They started off at level 1, and are now level 2 after our first meeting. The player characters include a Druid, a Wu Jen, a Swashbuckler, a Barbarian, a Paladin, and a Ranger. The guy playing the Druid and the guy playing the Wu Jen are FAR more experienced than I am with D&D in general, and both have DM'd multiple successful campaigns.

My biggest issue right now is that the group has absolutely blown through everything they've come up against. Even with the Ranger's player unable to make it to day 1, the group easily beat their way through their first encounter (10 goblins and a goblin leader, who was a level 1 Fighter), dispatched their second challenge without problem (a half-crazed Druid who was meant to become their mortal enemy, but now is just a useless character thanks to some rules-lawyering on the Druid player's part), and then after having some trouble with a role-playing and decision making section of the campaign, easily blew through a level 8 encounter that consisted of two Howlers.

They were capable of blowing through some of the encounters easily because of the Druid and Wu Jen both being much more experienced than the other players, I will admit. The Druid cast Entangle on the Howlers which allowed the rest of the party to beat them to a pulp, while in the Goblin encounter the Wu Jen used Daze to simply incapacitate the goblins and, once again, allow the party to beat them down, before killing the goblins with a spell that caused rocks to rain out of the sky.

Should I simply make the encounters tougher? Is it just because I'm a fairly inexperienced DM with very experienced players? I'm honestly open to any suggestions here, because I'm really, truly clueless as to what to do.

[DMVerdandi]

Suggestions.

-Don't forget about the non-combat aspects of the game. Have NPC interaction become a big part of it. Sometimes a group WILL blow through encounters. This becomes much easier when the group is larger. They can cover bases, and focus on tactics that you might not be able to counter as a lone DM.

-Customize the monsters. Swap out bad feats, equipment, and classes and optimize your encounters.

-This isn't a video game. In Console RPGs, there can be a single big bad at the same level, but can take on a whole group of PC's. Almost impossible in 3.5. The level has to either be exorbitantly higher than the party's, or there simply are more than one opponent. Don't get caught up sending waves of low level Mooks.
The enemies simply need to be as organized as a standard party. 4+ deep, and all delegating a task.

Organizations are a good idea. Rival kingdoms, guilds, factions, and cells. Think about how often criminals are lone wolves in reality. Rarely if ever. They exist in groups, gangs, sectarian forces, etc. Everyone has a squad.

As far as bestial monsters go, have them roam in packs. The more intelligent they get, the more organized their group structure becomes.

Don't be afraid of throwing some PC levels on monsters either. Especially if they are intelligent. For this group, you can afford to bump the encounter level up by two or so for every combat.

Also, with enemies higher than maybe 8 intelligence, Have each monster's feats complement the others.
Think group, not individual.


And don't forget the idea of reinforcements. Have a set enemy in each fight that is a runner. If the runner is the last enemy that is being fought, he WILL run and try and get help.

[LooseCannoneer]

Wait, is the Druid player new as well? Because that Druid is a great controller.

-Use out of combat stuff
-Learn their spell lists, then find an enemy that you can put in that has immunities to the main debuffs.

[Seclora]

Try giving them combats where their objectives are more complicated than 'kill these guys'. Escort quests suck for a reason, but they are memorable. Or make it so they have to hold X location until the cavalry arrives/macguffin activates/demolition team finishes setting things up. Then just throw wave after wave of mooks at them until the timer ticks down. Maybe force them to fight while also avoiding/finding some traps.

And there's always non-combat challenges. Your Druid and Wu-Jen are both experienced players and good casters, but how are they at tightrope walking? Sure they'll have flight in three levels, but right now they're earthbound. Or you could have them try to persuade someone to do a thing for them, neither of them is terribly charisma heavy I imagine, and only your paladin even has that as a relative ability score.


Sidenote, what kind of rules lawyering did your druid do to render your half-crazed druid NPC useless? Not looking for an arguement, it just sounds like an interesting story.


Wait, is the Druid player new as well? Because that Druid is a great controller.

-Use out of combat stuff
-Learn their spell lists, then find an enemy that you can put in that has immunities to the main debuffs.

First point is good; second one is a little more iffy. Don't pick enemies immune to their debuffs unless such an enemy is what the campaign and situation actually calls for. Constructs in a forest, not really all that common. Fey, on the other hand, are both commonly immune to enchantments, such as daze, and thematically linked to druids to begin with. And if you think your swashbuckler hasn't been hoping to run into a nymph, than I clearly don't know your players the way I'm pretending I do.

[MairsilFinn]

First off, thanks for all the replies! I've got some ideas now as far as what I can do, so I really appreciate it.


Wait, is the Druid player new as well? Because that Druid is a great controller.

Nope, he is probably my most experienced player.


Sidenote, what kind of rules lawyering did your druid do to render your half-crazed druid NPC useless? Not looking for an argument, it just sounds like an interesting story.

His basic storyline was that both he and his familiar were infected by a disease from the etherial plane which caused them to slowly lose their minds as well as their bodies. His familiar, a bear, was completely beyond hope and in agonizing pain, while also having completely lost his mind. So the half-crazed druid, who wasn't in his right mind either, put the bear out of his misery. When he learned this, the Druid player informed me that Tolvis (my NPC) had betrayed animals (and later on he blamed the party for the disease, which was caused by plants, which my Druid claimed was him betraying nature as well), and said that basically Tolvis was now unable to call on nature for help anymore.

Tolvis WAS supposed to have one of several things happen. If they helped him, he would have become an incredible ally, willing to share all of his knowledge with them. If they had attacked him (which they did), and allowed him to survive the encounter (the barbarian brought him to 2 life, and the swashbuckler hit him for nonlethal), he was to become their mortal enemy. Now though, he's pretty much useless as a mortal enemy. He may be useful as comic relief I guess at some points, but I was rather disappointed at how that all played out.

[Sam K]

Your players do not get to "decide" when an NPC lose access to their magic. Its not rules lawyering, it's a player trying to run your campaign.

If you're a more experienced player (and a veteran GM) it can be easy to fall into the role of dictating what you think should happend, especially if you're playing with a new GM. I would suggest you sit down with the druids player and explain that while you know he has more experience, you need him to act as a PLAYER, not a DM, and respect the calls you make.

Having a player getting to make judgement calls for NPCs based on how it "should be" is a sure way to throw the campaign off-track.

[MairsilFinn]

Your players do not get to "decide" when an NPC lose access to their magic. Its not rules lawyering, it's a player trying to run your campaign.

If you're a more experienced player (and a veteran GM) it can be easy to fall into the role of dictating what you think should happend, especially if you're playing with a new GM. I would suggest you sit down with the druids player and explain that while you know he has more experience, you need him to act as a PLAYER, not a DM, and respect the calls you make.

Having a player getting to make judgement calls for NPCs based on how it "should be" is a sure way to throw the campaign off-track.

I'll have to do that. I don't think he was intentionally trying to derail things, but I'll talk to him regardless.

I don't think I'm going to roll back what happened to Tolvis though, as it would throw the party off track even further. Is it possible for me to have Tolvis make a return later with levels in another class? I'd like to work him into the campaign somehow still, preferably NOT as comic relief.

[Amphetryon]

I'll have to do that. I don't think he was intentionally trying to derail things, but I'll talk to him regardless.

I don't think I'm going to roll back what happened to Tolvis though, as it would throw the party off track even further. Is it possible for me to have Tolvis make a return later with levels in another class? I'd like to work him into the campaign somehow still, preferably NOT as comic relief.

There are legitimate Classes/Prestige Classes for Ex-Druids, though they're generally a reduction in the Druid's baseline of efficacy. The default 'Ex-Druid' is the Blighter Prestige Class, which has the fluff of turning against nature; it's widely considered a trap option, but it does exist and would get Tolvis some of his spells back.

[Sam K]

If you feel like homebrewing it, you could make some druid variant, like a "dark druid". Summoning diseased animals and using spells that corrupt and sicken. Maybe he is cut off from the source of power most druids draw from, but he found another, darker aspect of nature. Or you could re-train him as a cleric of some god of death.

Or have him become posessed by some spellcasting spirit or demon; he gives up his body for a chance to get revenge on the world which he feels turned his back on him?

[LooseCannoneer]

Although Tolvis didn't betray nature, he put an animal down. Its sort of like you putting down a pet because it was hit by a car, then PETA steals everything you own.

[Sam K]

Although Tolvis didn't betray nature, he put an animal down. Its sort of like you putting down a pet because it was hit by a car, then PETA steals everything you own.

Not to mention, ANIMALS KILL ANIMALS ALL THE TIME! Disney and the hippies lied to you, nature is horrible! There are wasps that lay eggs in spiders, and when the eggs hatch the larvae eats the spider WHILE IT'S STILL ALIVE! Ok, so spiders and wasps are vermin in D&D, but still... There's probably a reason why druids can be NE, nature sure can!

But the OP didn't want to rollback the druid losing his druidic powers, so...

[MairsilFinn]

Although Tolvis didn't betray nature, he put an animal down. Its sort of like you putting down a pet because it was hit by a car, then PETA steals everything you own.

You win the internet sir. I've officially done my spit-take for the day.


But the OP didn't want to rollback the druid losing his druidic powers, so...

My main reason for doing so is that it would throw the party off track, as they made some decisions that revolved around Tolvis no longer being much of a threat at the moment, hence my desire to find a way to work him back into things. I do like the suggestion of having him give up part of himself in order to sate his anger. The players don't know it yet, but the disease left some lasting damage on his mind, so this could be a good way to tie him back into the campaign.

[HammeredWharf]

Blighter is a decent NPC class. Yes, it's not optimal. However, its biggest weakness is that it paints a big "COME AT ME DRUIDS" sign on you, which is not something you'd want your player character to have, but is completely ok for an NPC antagonist. To compensate for the class' weakness you can just give the NPC more levels.

When players can blast through the enemies, give them tougher enemies. That doesn't necessarily mean enemy optimization. You can just pick a few monsters and throw them at the party, CR be damned. The CR system in general is pretty broken, so using it as more than a guideline is a mistake. For example, my players have taken on CR25+ challenges at lvl 12 and beaten them easily. I'm not saying you should ignore CRs, but don't let them limit your encounter design. Use the same logic when awarding XP: "Was this a tough encounter?" is a better line of thought than "Ok, I'll just put these numbers into a CR calculator.."

Sometimes simply using tougher monsters won't do. One of such situations is when one of the players has a good crowd control character. Increasing the numbers too much can lead to unwanted consequences, such as OHKOs. So, use smart tactics instead or in addition to toughening monsters. Incorporeal foes touching the players through walls. Casters throwing spells at them. Earth elementals Earth Gliding around. Aerial attacks. Invisible foes. Enemies coming from multiple directions. Traps. Trap encounters from Dungeonscape. Natural environmental features like darkness or movement-impeding amounts of snow. Fights in slippery areas. Fights with traps mixed in. Fights in slippery, dark areas with enemies coming from multiple directions, trap encounters from Dungeonscape mixed in and a Shadow touching the players through the floor while an invisible wizard attacks them with crowd control spells. Interesting things like that.

Of course, straightforward encounters can be fun, too, but I try to mix things up a bit so that every fight has a gimmick. Most of those gimmicks have to be fair and simple so that fights don't become exercises in frustration, like the fight I described above would probably be. Still, deviation from the "two ogres charge you" encounter design is necessary to keep things fresh and experienced players on their toes.

[Troacctid]

If you need to scale up the power of encounters to keep up with powerful PCs, an important rule of thumb is to always make sure the enemy's defense scales up more than their offense. More HP is good. Damage reduction, spell resistance, energy resistance, all good. More damage? Bad.

You don't want yourself in a scenario where the enemy wins initiative and one-shots a PC before they even get to take a turn. That happened to my PCs, like, twice in my first campaign, and it wasn't really much fun for anyone involved. Rocket tag encounters are lame.

And your Druid NPC should totally come back as a Blighter later. It's a great class for NPC villains and opens up easy plot hooks. Your player was wrong about the Druid falling in the first place, but now that you're rolling with it, you should roll with it.

[MairsilFinn]

Blighter is a decent NPC class. Yes, it's not optimal. However, its biggest weakness is that it paints a big "COME AT ME DRUIDS" sign on you, which is not something you'd want your player character to have, but is completely ok for an NPC antagonist. To compensate for the class' weakness you can just give the NPC more levels.

When players can blast through the enemies, give them tougher enemies. That doesn't necessarily mean enemy optimization. You can just pick a few monsters and throw them at the party, CR be damned. The CR system in general is pretty broken, so using it as more than a guideline is a mistake. For example, my players have taken on CR25+ challenges at lvl 12 and beaten them easily. I'm not saying you should ignore CRs, but don't let them limit your encounter design. Use the same logic when awarding XP: "Was this a tough encounter?" is a better line of thought than "Ok, I'll just put these numbers into a CR calculator.."

Sometimes simply using tougher monsters won't do. One of such situations is when one of the players has a good crowd control character. Increasing the numbers too much can lead to unwanted consequences, such as OHKOs. So, use smart tactics instead or in addition to toughening monsters. Incorporeal foes touching the players through walls. Casters throwing spells at them. Earth elementals Earth Gliding around. Aerial attacks. Invisible foes. Enemies coming from multiple directions. Traps. Trap encounters from Dungeonscape. Natural environmental features like darkness or movement-impeding amounts of snow. Fights in slippery areas. Fights with traps mixed in. Fights in slippery, dark areas with enemies coming from multiple directions, trap encounters from Dungeonscape mixed in and a Shadow touching the players through the floor while an invisible wizard attacks them with crowd control spells. Interesting things like that.

Of course, straightforward encounters can be fun, too, but I try to mix things up a bit so that every fight has a gimmick. Most of those gimmicks have to be fair and simple so that fights don't become exercises in frustration, like the fight I described above would probably be. Still, deviation from the "two ogres charge you" encounter design is necessary to keep things fresh and experienced players on their toes.

Awesome. Thanks for the advice. I definitely like the ideas you've given me. Honestly I wasn't sure what kind of advice I'd get when I came here, but I'm definitely glad I did. I guess I'll stick around then!


Troacctid

If you need to scale up the power of encounters to keep up with powerful PCs, an important rule of thumb is to always make sure the enemy's defense scales up more than their offense. More HP is good. Damage reduction, spell resistance, energy resistance, all good. More damage? Bad.

You don't want yourself in a scenario where the enemy wins initiative and one-shots a PC before they even get to take a turn. That happened to my PCs, like, twice in my first campaign, and it wasn't really much fun for anyone involved. Rocket tag encounters are lame.

And your Druid NPC should totally come back as a Blighter later. It's a great class for NPC villains and opens up easy plot hooks. Your player was wrong about the Druid falling in the first place, but now that you're rolling with it, you should roll with it.


Yeah, I definitely don't want them playing rocket tag in the encounters. Knowing my players they'd think it was hilarious the first time it happened. After that though, not so much. I am planning on bringing back the druid as a Blighter later on. Probably two weeks from now. We run our campaign weekly on Monday nights, and they are going at a decent pace.

[Necrovosh]

Also, if you have access to the Eberron books, Child of Winter, Vermin Companion, and Vermin Wild Shape (or the Aberration feats in Lords of Madness) can make for a twisted, dark Druid who has embraced disease and death (or insanity) and draws his power from a more evil aspected part of nature. Perhaps disease as a concept is now what he venerates? Clerics gain magic from things they believe in, and I've always thought that druids were just more primitive or less structured divine casters.

[Nibbens]

While this (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit?pli=1)guide is keyed to Pathfinder, the logic it talks about in encounter design and how to make things challenging for your PC's rings true regardless which edition you're playing.

I live and die by this guide now. lol.

[Seclora]

Also, if you have access to the Eberron books, Child of Winter, Vermin Companion, and Vermin Wild Shape (or the Aberration feats in Lords of Madness) can make for a twisted, dark Druid who has embraced disease and death (or insanity) and draws his power from a more evil aspected part of nature. Perhaps disease as a concept is now what he venerates? Clerics gain magic from things they believe in, and I've always thought that druids were just more primitive or less structured divine casters.

This actually gave me a very good idea. Evil idea. It's good for bad.
Are you familiar with the prestige class Cancer Mage?

If you're not, crack open your Book of Vile Darkness and have a look at the first prestige class in the book. You've already mentioned that there is a disease involved in this character, and while it doesn't advance his casting, it would be a logical way for an ex-druid who'd lost it over a disease to go. Just think, unable to accept the loss of his animal companion, Tolvis convinces himself that the disease itself is his companion, and teaches it a few new tricks as he pursues the monsters who nearly killed him. It's much more subtle than a blighter, and allows him to kid himself into believing he's still a guardian of nature.
Sort of is a guardian of nature, diseases are usually natural(besides Mummy Rot and Lycanthropy, that sort of thing)

[Necrovosh]

This actually gave me a very good idea. Evil idea. It's good for bad.
Are you familiar with the prestige class Cancer Mage?

If you're not, crack open your Book of Vile Darkness and have a look at the first prestige class in the book. You've already mentioned that there is a disease involved in this character, and while it doesn't advance his casting, it would be a logical way for an ex-druid who'd lost it over a disease to go. Just think, unable to accept the loss of his animal companion, Tolvis convinces himself that the disease itself is his companion, and teaches it a few new tricks as he pursues the monsters who nearly killed him. It's much more subtle than a blighter, and allows him to kid himself into believing he's still a guardian of nature.
Sort of is a guardian of nature, diseases are usually natural(besides Mummy Rot and Lycanthropy, that sort of thing)

Heck, even lycanthropy, depending on setting. If I remember correctly, lycanthropy and the shifters what spawned from it were caused by the druids in Eberron trying to defend their people/sacred places from the Xoriat (sort of Limbo crossed with the Far Realm) invasion.

[Doctor Awkward]

I have 6 players in my game right now. They started off at level 1, and are now level 2 after our first meeting. The player characters include a Druid, a Wu Jen, a Swashbuckler, a Barbarian, a Paladin, and a Ranger. The guy playing the Druid and the guy playing the Wu Jen are FAR more experienced than I am with D&D in general, and both have DM'd multiple successful campaigns.

Problem #1: You have a party of PC's consisting of wildly varying levels of power and ability.
The Druid and the Wu Jen are both primary casters. By default, primary spellcasting classes are better than non-magic using classes. At everything. It's probably the greatest failing of the system.
Also consider that if the druid player is experienced at the class, his animal companion is probably a more effective melee combatant than the barbarian right now, and depending on how effectively the barbarian is built, the swashbuckler and the paladin could wind up even weaker.
I'm not pointing this out to say you are doing it wrong. It's just to explain precisely why things are happening the way they are.


My biggest issue right now is that the group has absolutely blown through everything they've come up against. Even with the Ranger's player unable to make it to day 1, the group easily beat their way through their first encounter (10 goblins and a goblin leader, who was a level 1 Fighter), dispatched their second challenge without problem (a half-crazed Druid who was meant to become their mortal enemy, but now is just a useless character thanks to some rules-lawyering on the Druid player's part), and then after having some trouble with a role-playing and decision making section of the campaign, easily blew through a level 8 encounter that consisted of two Howlers.

They were capable of blowing through some of the encounters easily because of the Druid and Wu Jen both being much more experienced than the other players, I will admit. The Druid cast Entangle on the Howlers which allowed the rest of the party to beat them to a pulp, while in the Goblin encounter the Wu Jen used Daze to simply incapacitate the goblins and, once again, allow the party to beat them down, before killing the goblins with a spell that caused rocks to rain out of the sky.
Not a surprise. Intelligently played Druids and Wu Jen, like all casters, are often capable of handling encounters well above their level.

The CR system works like this: You have a party of four players, consisting of a melee fighter, a sneaky backstabby rogue, a blaster wizard, and a healbot cleric. That is the party that D&D was play-tested and designed around. Once you start deviating from that, for example by using battlefield control spells, or having more than four players the CR system starts to get thrown completely out of whack.
Unfortunately the only cure for that is experience. It's extremely difficult for a beginning DM to know at a glance what a party will be capable of handling.

The best solution for now is to play it by ear. Plan your encounter like you always would, but leave an opening for yourself for some reinforcements to show up if it becomes clear the fight is way too easy. Just be careful of...


Should I simply make the encounters tougher? Is it just because I'm a fairly inexperienced DM with very experienced players? I'm honestly open to any suggestions here, because I'm really, truly clueless as to what to do.

...Problem #2: If you increase the difficulty and complexity of the encounters specifically to suit the higher level of play coming from the spellcasters, you are going to completely annihilate the other players, either by killing them outright, or creating situations where they will be unable to contribute to the encounter.

The further quandary occurs when addressing the problem with the players. Players who are used to optimizing may get bored and lose interest when they are asked to deliberately play ineffective characters to accommodate new players or new DM's. Conversely, beginning players may find the number of options of an optimized build overwhelming and frustrating. You can't simply hand a powerful build to a player. They also need to know how to use it to accomplish what they want in a given campaign.


The best solution is to simply ask, is everyone having fun?
If none of the players are complaining, and you are getting to tell your story, then there is no problem.
If players start telling that they feel useless compared to the casters, then it's time to step in and ask for changes.
Ideally, get the druid and the wu jen to agree to buff the other party members when they prepare their spells, rather than debuffing or controlling the enemies. It's a role usually relegated to Wizards known as "Playing GOD". They cast the spells that turn the party into killing machines, everyone gets to contribute, and the melee characters feel like they "won", when in reality the casters just sat back and let the mortals get their hands dirty and risk death on their behalf.

[MairsilFinn]

This actually gave me a very good idea. Evil idea. It's good for bad.
Are you familiar with the prestige class Cancer Mage?

If you're not, crack open your Book of Vile Darkness and have a look at the first prestige class in the book. You've already mentioned that there is a disease involved in this character, and while it doesn't advance his casting, it would be a logical way for an ex-druid who'd lost it over a disease to go. Just think, unable to accept the loss of his animal companion, Tolvis convinces himself that the disease itself is his companion, and teaches it a few new tricks as he pursues the monsters who nearly killed him. It's much more subtle than a blighter, and allows him to kid himself into believing he's still a guardian of nature.
Sort of is a guardian of nature, diseases are usually natural(besides Mummy Rot and Lycanthropy, that sort of thing)

Oh. Now this I like. I've got the perfect idea for how I'm going to wind Tolvis back into things. Thanks for posting this, as I think Tolvis is going to become something they really aren't going to like.

...Problem #2: If you increase the difficulty and complexity of the encounters specifically to suit the higher level of play coming from the spellcasters, you are going to completely annihilate the other players, either by killing them outright, or creating situations where they will be unable to contribute to the encounter.


The further quandary occurs when addressing the problem with the players. Players who are used to optimizing may get bored and lose interest when they are asked to deliberately play ineffective characters to accommodate new players or new DM's. Conversely, beginning players may find the number of options of an optimized build overwhelming and frustrating. You can't simply hand a powerful build to a player. They also need to know how to use it to accomplish what they want in a given campaign.


The best solution is to simply ask, is everyone having fun?
If none of the players are complaining, and you are getting to tell your story, then there is no problem.
If players start telling that they feel useless compared to the casters, then it's time to step in and ask for changes.
Ideally, get the druid and the wu jen to agree to buff the other party members when they prepare their spells, rather than debuffing or controlling the enemies. It's a role usually relegated to Wizards known as "Playing GOD". They cast the spells that turn the party into killing machines, everyone gets to contribute, and the melee characters feel like they "won", when in reality the casters just sat back and let the mortals get their hands dirty and risk death on their behalf.

Thanks for the suggestions! I only quoted the latter part of your post but it has all been helpful. I agree with you that ratcheting up the difficulty of the encounters may not be the best idea, but I may give it a try with a single encounter just to see how it pans out. Really the only inexperienced player is the Swashbuckler, and he's really not much of a liability to the group even with being inexperienced.

[Sam K]

This actually gave me a very good idea. Evil idea. It's good for bad.
Are you familiar with the prestige class Cancer Mage?

If you're not, crack open your Book of Vile Darkness and have a look at the first prestige class in the book. You've already mentioned that there is a disease involved in this character, and while it doesn't advance his casting, it would be a logical way for an ex-druid who'd lost it over a disease to go. Just think, unable to accept the loss of his animal companion, Tolvis convinces himself that the disease itself is his companion, and teaches it a few new tricks as he pursues the monsters who nearly killed him. It's much more subtle than a blighter, and allows him to kid himself into believing he's still a guardian of nature.
Sort of is a guardian of nature, diseases are usually natural(besides Mummy Rot and Lycanthropy, that sort of thing)

Homebrewed cancer mage that advances divine casting (cancer druid?) is the "cure" to all life's problems! Especially appropriate because cancer is really "life gone wild", growing out of controll and without consideration for the consequences.

[Doctor Awkward]

Homebrewed cancer mage that advances divine casting (cancer druid?) is the "cure" to all life's problems! Especially appropriate because cancer is really "life gone wild", growing out of controll and without consideration for the consequences.

Also consider having him swear service to Ragnorra from Elder Evils, who is described as a bloated mass of corrupted positive energy made flesh.
That gets him a free Vile Feat per 5 HD he possesses.

Hell you could even create a campaign around her, since the manifestations of Ragnorra start out by boosting positive energy spells, and then become a disease the corrupts living corporeal things into twisted aberrations in service to her.

There is also a set of signs called Appalling Fecundity that you could create your own world-destroying Elder Evil around that the druid swears service to:
-At faint signs, things grow and ripen at an accelerated rate. All plants are affected as if by the spell plant growth. this is great for crops, but all natural vegetation suffers from overgrowth and chokes open spaces
-At moderate signs all areas of natural growth are affected as if by the entangle spell. Once per week, all living creatures must make a DC 10 Fortitude save or acquire the pseudonatural template

This is where things get absolutely ****ing metal...
-At strong signs, living creatures that require sleep lose the ability to do so. After a number of days equal to their Con modifier, after which they are fatigued. After another Con modifier days, they become exhausted. Every day after that they suffer 1 point of Wisdom damage, and when that damage exceeds their hit dice they suffer the effects of the insanity spell. The only way to alleviate this is with the sleep spell, deep slumber spell, or a similar effect.
-At overwhelming signs, all living creatures gain 1d6 temporary hit points once per hour, and for every hour that your total accumulated temporary HP is greater than your total regular HP, you have to make a DC 20 Fortitude save or explode in a shower of gore(!!)

Just read this freaking description. This is some Hitchcock stuff right here:
At first crops and animals grow and reproduce with unnatural swiftness, and injuries
vanish overnight. As the sign intensifies, these early benefits run out of control. Fruit bursts and rots on the vine before it can be harvested. Weeds crack pavement and damage buildings. Clouds of vermin boil up from the earth, laying eggs that hatch and spawn new life in moments, and with them come equally virulent disease.