Rat Lord Build (Pathfinder only please)

[ThatBoostedNoob]

Alright smart and wise GITP community.... lets see what you got for me. To remind everyone... pathfinder only sources is preferred (3pp allowed). My goal is to create a character that uses hoards of rats to create a gigantic army that completely takes over the world for his "rat god". My initial thought was to create a swarm monger druid. Gets me a cool rat familiar that can turn into a swarm. Also i intended to use the handle animal skill to tame the Rat King creature to use as a proxy to summon more rats and also communicate with rats on my behalf. If anyone has any better ideas or additions please feel free to post. To conclude, I am fully aware that this is probably a terrible idea. This mostly just seemed like a hilarious idea that i just wanted to have fun with. It'll probably be too much paperwork to keep track off but i think it can be done. I'm also aware that this idea will only work for so long if at all. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. I have a pretty lax DM and we can probably get away with anything that isn't terribly broken. Lets have fun with this guys.... and keep in line with chat rules.

[stack]

3pp allowed, so Spheres of Might Beastmastery (http://http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/beastmastery) sphere may be of interest. Builds off handle animal a but and has a swarm option. Adding a few talents to your druid via feats might be nifty.

[ThatBoostedNoob]

Thank you for the input. This is really strong and helps a lot with the mechanical flaws of handle animal. My only concern is that this is a really over tuned system. I'm also unsure how its actually supposed to work. From what i gather, the spheres of might system replaces your feats with abilities... the more feats you give up the more you gain. I'm not really worried about giving up feats. What i am worried about is gaining far stronger abilities when compared to the feats i would be giving up. At any rate... its all D.M discretion at the end of the day. This does seem to be a very strong option for my character concept. Very helpful. Any other ideas are still appreciated.

[Geddy2112]

With the luring piper (http://archivesofnethys.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Bard%20Luring%20Pi per) archetype you can literally be the pied piper and get animals to follow you around and go to their deaths or whatever.

The blight druid also has a vermin empathy feature, and you can always take vermin heart on a normal druid to get similar powers.

Any of the classes that grant animal companions or mounts usually have an option for a pack of animals, so you could be a hunter/ranger/druid/cavalier/etc with a pack of giant rats if you wanted to go that route as well.

[ThatBoostedNoob]

The luring piper idea isnt bad but not really the concept i was hoping for. You really hit the nail on the head with the animal companion ability from the nature classes. Druids in general seem to best fit the concept im going for. They are better at controlling animals and also can bolster their ranks with summon natures ally. The animal companion or familiar(in the case of Blight druid and swarm monger) is also really good for the theme. Can you apply templates to summoned creatures(Giant rats for example)? Can you apply templates to regular animals(giant dire rats)? The last one seems to be more of a G.M decision. Are there any good magic items to go with this concept (crap loads of rats murdering everything).

[Geddy2112]

I gotcha, more of a Willard/Ben style.

Swarm mongerer is probably best, although be careful sending your familiar into combat. After a few levels, you can use their swarm form in every combat. At higher levels, nauseated condition is a serious debuff and no joke. Make sure you use the child of pollution to buff up your health and your familiar's as well.

You can't directly apply templates to your own creautres or animals, but with augment summons you can make your summons much stronger. For getting numbers of giant rats, consider superior summons. You also want to look into the summon swarm spell to get rat swarms and not just rats.

The spell nixie's lure can get you a LOT of rats, particularly swarms. Make sure you wild empathy them while they are fascinated so they don't suddenly eat you alive. Your familiar can speak to them as well on your behalf at higher levels and act as a translator.

Pipes of the sewers are dirt cheap and let you pied piper rat swarms at will, so long as you can pass the DC10 perform check. So long as you play, they will do your bidding and more will come, theoretically you can have an unlimited number under your control so long as you keep playing. You might also look at the swarmwalkers ring and rat tread boots.

If you really want to cheese it up, be a ratfolk. Not just to get rats on rats on rats,but for that sweet sweet vermin empathy giving a +4 to handle animal for rodents, as well as a favored class bonus that gives you a +1 per take on wild empathy to influence animals that live underground(rats burrow so that should be kosher).

While all this is fun and games, you can still be a strong caster druid on top of this so you won't be a slouch in combat or deadweight in a party.

[ThatBoostedNoob]

Very nice man. Love all of this stuff. The pipes seem a little bit of an investment in skill points though but still... really powerful. All of this is definitely what i was asking for. If ya got anything else id be grateful. Also thanks for the rules clarification on the whole template thing. Very helpful guys.

[ThatBoostedNoob]

Btw the main idea for how i intended to get alot of rats on the board was to get some assistance by taming Rat Kings. These guys are smart enough to be able to control other rats and can use diplomacy on them as well. The idea was to tame a few of these guys then get them to go find and collect more rats for me while im sleeping and stuff. I should be able to get alot of rats this way. They are magical beasts so they should be able to follow slightly more complex plans. All the other magical means of summoning will be bonus points. The beauty of this plan is that i can only tame and train so many creatures at a time... this way i can train the trainers.

[Geddy2112]

A DC10 perform is not too hard, although the risk for failure is the rats attack you so you probably can't take 10. With 10 charisma, that is 9 ranks to always pass, although you could use a trait to get perform as a class skill(and a +1 at that), meaning you would only need 5 ranks. If you took the savant trait, you get a +2 to one type of perform check, meaning 4 ranks would do. Boosting your charisma might also be of use.

A rat king cannot be tamed, as handle animal only works on animals, not magical beasts. Your wild empathy is likewise not going to work as it only works on magical beasts with an intelligence of 1 or 2. A rat king has an intelligence of 5, ruling out wild empathy. It is also immune to effects that target a single creature, so you could not even dominate it or charm it.

For this kind of creature, you outright have to use diplomacy. You have to treat it like any other intelligent creature, so "taming" them is not an option. Diplomacy is your best bet, which can be scored with a trait as a class skill and is worth picking up. Having a rat familiar that can speak with it helps, although you could also have feral speech and speak to it as well. Either way, diplomacy requires exchanging language. You could also threaten or coerce them with intimidate, but that has long term consequences. There is also outright capturing and enslaving, but again, that has downstream consequences.

Since your character will be a leader of all ratkind and generally down with rats, I think rat kings will at least give you an audience, and likely have similar goals. See if your DM allows leadership, and if so if they would allow you to use leadership to get a rat king cohort.

[ThatBoostedNoob]

Is it possible then that i could get one as a familiar (Swarm Monger for example)? Maybe get an archetype for it. That might work. Kinda makes sense though about them being unable to be tamed. They're smart enough to plan and think. I know you can get a ratling as a familiar.... that might work better. Maybe use him to make deals with Rat Kings. I definitely don't want to be doing all the checks and stuff for rearing. The time investment would be astounding and impractical. If i set it up right ill have many different jobs for the various rats. Some fight, some forage, scouts.... the idea is to get unlimited cannon fodder. My friend thinks going with blight druid is better cuz then i can make zombie rats and get all the benefit with none of the upkeep. I personally dont want to be another necromancer. I like the idea of taking something insignificant and making it strong. That and the whole Willard idea was very true to my idea... good movie. Is there such a thing as a pet carrier of holding? That would be vary handy. Get some rat kings to give orders in it so when i open the box, the rats are all ready to go.... probably overthinking this whole concept. Youve been very helpful with your posts. Straight and to the point. Thanks for catching my mistake and the whole "tame able" thing.

[Geddy2112]

A CR5 creature is far too powerful to have as a familiar, but you could swing it with leadership as a cohort. I would stick to a rat familiar then a ratling with improved familiar.

With vermin heart, you can simply use wild empathy to win over rats and rat swarms to be helpful allies instead of training them all yourself. Remember, with vermin heart your magic that normally targets animals now works on vermin, so charm/dominate animal, etc will do just fine. Simply get them close to you by nixies lure, pipes of the sewers, what have you, and be friendly. Wild empathy adds your level to the check, so you should be able to win them over. You are overthinking the mechanics, just win over a few rat kings and you basically win. There will be a large rat population in most civilized areas so making an army is easy.

Necromancy has limits on the number you can control and a price-just making them all your friend is free and unlimited in number.

For carrying, you can use the hostling enchantment to carry your familiar, or the spell carry companion. For carrying swarms of rats, just get a big bag of holding and leave it open so they can breathe. Throw in some water now and again, and either let them out or throw people in alive and have the rats consume them. Just ensure the rats know not to rip open the bag, which you should be able to do if you can adjust their view of you to "helpful" with wild empathy.

[ThatBoostedNoob]

Seems legit. Thank you for the advice and help. I do tend to overthink my ideas.... i hash them out then rehash and rehash. I like a fine tuned idea before i even start the math and whatnot. This has been very helpful and i thank you for your patience with me. This is my first time using the forum. Ive gotten ideas from other peoples posts before but this is my first actual idea for a character that i needed help on. Pretty sure my problem was trying to make use of handle animal. Not easy to do when its fairly time consuming and expensive for what you get. The druid class kinda circumvents alot of the problems you encounter with handle animal. So thanks for the help... this should be enough to work with and then some. Any other ideas are still welcome... as is advice. Ty for the help.:smallsmile:

[Mechalich]

While it's probably not the most efficient option, you can always just slap on the Animal Lord (Rat Lord) template to a character. The template technically requires you to have 10 HD, but that's easily finessed by your GM.

[SangoProduction]

Thank you for the input. This is really strong and helps a lot with the mechanical flaws of handle animal. My only concern is that this is a really over tuned system. I'm also unsure how its actually supposed to work. From what i gather, the spheres of might system replaces your feats with abilities... the more feats you give up the more you gain. I'm not really worried about giving up feats. What i am worried about is gaining far stronger abilities when compared to the feats i would be giving up. At any rate... its all D.M discretion at the end of the day. This does seem to be a very strong option for my character concept. Very helpful. Any other ideas are still appreciated.

Basically, there's a feat called "Extra Combat Talent", which has no prerequisites. This lets you pick up a single talent. In this case, you'd go to the Beastmastery (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/beastmastery)sphere, and take the starting talent (which gives you a choice between handle animal and ride), taking handle animal.

Also note: Beastmastery is a pretty weak option, all things considered. You can only tame HD equal to your HD...and well, beasts tend to have much higher HD than actual effectiveness. And it doesn't grow, unless you also take Bolster Beast. Lastly, your DM actually has the first and final say on what you can get, since you can't tame something that doesn't show up. Where as Animal Companions just come out of the blue.

With exception to combat maneuvers (which Paizo basically just has no support for at all), Spheres of Might is not going to surpass any well-made Paizo builds in terms of sheer stats. Do you get things that are much more interesting than "+4 to initiative", that are not complete and total trap options (aside from the Trap sphere, hehe)? Definitely.

[ThatBoostedNoob]

What Talents are worth the feat tax and the limit of HD of creatures then. I liked the idea of being able to increase the amount of creatures that i can train at once but the hit Dice cap could get in my way. It does seem useful... just worried it will be cumbersome as well.

[Draconi Redfir]

if you don't become a wererat at some point i will be severely disappointed

[ThatBoostedNoob]

TBH. I was going to make him a ratfolk to start with. Im not sure what happens when a Ratfolk is in hybrid form. On the bright side. I could turn into a halfling of some sort right? Or would my hybrid and "human" form be almost identical. Rat form would still be good.