Vermin Druid

[TheCrowing1432]

I wanted to make a vermin druid for my big bad, ecl somewhere around 9.

I was thinking of using the Vermin Lord PRC from the book of vile darkness.

Anyone got any tips for a really vermin based character?

[AvatarVecna]

Vermin Keeper (from Underdark) is better both for the vermin druid concept as well as for optimal play; Vermin Lord is either terribly unoptimized Practical Optimization, or it's hilariously overpowered Theoretical Optimization. There's not much middle ground to speak of, sadly.

Anyway, Vermin Keeper is meant as a vermin druid class, and is far better for this kind of thing; it gives full casting progression, gives you vermin wild shape, and lets Handle Animal and Wild Empathy affect vermin.

[TheCrowing1432]

Vermin Keeper (from Underdark) is better both for the vermin druid concept as well as for optimal play; Vermin Lord is either terribly unoptimized Practical Optimization, or it's hilariously overpowered Theoretical Optimization. There's not much middle ground to speak of, sadly.

Anyway, Vermin Keeper is meant as a vermin druid class, and is far better for this kind of thing; it gives full casting progression, gives you vermin wild shape, and lets Handle Animal and Wild Empathy affect vermin.

Hes a one off BBEG.

But thats for the suggestion.


Are there any poison/disease type spells that tie in with the idea of filth/disease/poison vermin?

[DrMotives]

Are there any poison/disease type spells that tie in with the idea of filth/disease/poison vermin?

BoVD, Druid 1: Spider hand. That one turns a hand into a tiny monstrous spider, mainly used to scout and spy on things. Also everything on the corrupt spell list from that book can be used by an evil druid, some involve diseases & poisons. Refluff those too, if your arms turn into poisonous snakes, the vermin druid gets centipede arms. "Fangs of the vampire king" can be refluffed as giving you giant bug mandibles.

You also might make it a shifter druid, the alternate class feature from PHB2. You take generic predator, flyer, etc forms. The book says anything terrain appropriate for the druid, so your simple predator is a giant soldier ant, the flyer is a moth, ferocious slayer is a mantis, etc. I like this idea because it's very little work for you, and you said this is a one-off BBEG.

[Sian]

the Alternate Class Feature 'Rootwalker' (Dungeonscape) might also be relevant, giving you Wild Empathy for Vermins (explicitly ignoring that you'd usually wouldn't be able as they are non-intelligent)

[Molan]

I had a PC do this actually. He wanted to be a "bee Druid" so I cut off a lot of his normal powers relating to Animals and replaced them with ones related to a very narrow selection of vermin swarms.

This meant that as he progressed his options for companions and wild shape was literally 1 option per ECL tier, but he could turn into a swarm of bees and kept one around him at all times. Him going Vermin lord around level 11 only added to the grossness and hilarity. I would just say that the BoVD + any vermin or swarm entries in the MM are your friend. A standard Druid BBEG can do a lot with just standard spells and some gross minions.

[daremetoidareyo]

Venomfire from serpent kingdoms and breath of the jungle from some source that I forget to up poison save dcs.

[eggynack]

Might be worth just running this as a standard druid. Pick up child of winter from eberron campaign setting for vermin summoning, a vestment of verminshape from the DMG II for vermin wild shape forms, and pick up a vermin companion from hereabouts (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040705a). That covers the not-spell aspect pretty efficiently. On the spell end, for vermin theming, you want summon swarm, maybe using the murder of crows option from tome of magic if you're so inclined, as well as giant vermin, preferably CL boosted. I also tend to like blood snow combined with blizzard, both from frostburn, and poison as well as poison vines (SpC, 160) help with poison theming. Blackwater tentacle from stormwrack could help too, cause that spell has some evil feel, and pestilence from the book of vile darkness could work on the disease angle. Might want to check out that book in general, actually.