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Nirvana_Flame
2019-12-15, 02:58 PM
Looking for some feedback and criticism on my humble attempt to make a prestige class out of Vermin Lord and Master of the Flies, while trying to fix hivemind ability.
Since the forum doesnt allow me to post links(T_T), here's this imgurcom/gallery/wcojE0R

Edit 1:Formating
Edit 2: Formating and changes(changed chitin,swarm shape,added the list of new swarms for SNA), minor proofreading


Hive King

With a desire to become one with its vermin subjects the hive king asserts their rule over all manner of small vermin. This starts the process of their transformation into an intelligent swarm that while maintaining a single will can dissolve into a cloud of vermin.

Requirements


- Alignment: any non-lawful
- Skills: Escape Artist 5 ranks, Knowledge(nature) 5 ranks, Hide 3 ranks, Move Silently 3 ranks
- Feats: Verminfriend, Child of Winter
- Special: Ability to summon creatures, forfeiting druid's wild shape ability(if druid)



Class Features
As a hive king, you gain the following class features

General

- Hit Dice: 1d8 per hive king level
- Skill points: 6 + Int
- Proficiencies: Hive King gets no additional proficiencies.
- Skills: Bluff, Climb, Diplomacy, Disguise, Concentration, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Knowledge(nature), Move Silently, Perform, Survival, Spellcraft


Spells

When a hive king gains 1st level, and every level after that, the character gains
new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in whatever spellcasting class he belonged to before he
added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have
gained (improved chance of controlling or rebuking undead, metamagic or item creation feats, hit points,
beyond those received from the prestige class, and so on), except for an increased effective level of
spellcasting.

This essentially means that he adds the new level of hive king to the level of whatever other
spellcasting class the character has then determines spells per day, spells knowns, and caster level accordingly.
If a character had more than one spellcasting class before he became a hive king, he must decide to which class
he adds the level of hive king.

Hive King also adds new swarm creatures to its SNA creature list



Features

- Chitin (Ex):

A hive king gains a +3 natural armor bonus to Armor Class from the chitinous plates that begin to
encompass his body. Every three levels beyond the 1st, this bonus increases by +1.



- Swarm Shape (Su):

Beginning at 2nd level, a hive king can assume the least shape of **one** swarm and return to his own form as a standard action and doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity.His options for new forms include all creatures with the swarm type he is able to summon at his level. Due to the nature of the ability the hive king can freely change the appearance of swarm creatures as he sees fit. The shape can be sustained for the duration of 1 min./HK level.

The swarm has the same number of hit points as the original creature and can be damaged by fire and area effect spells and abilities. If the swarm is dispersed (by a gust of wind, for example), the hive king must return to
his own shape. To do so, the dispersed creatures must first coalesce (at the swarm's speed); the hive king must
take a standard action on the following round to transform.A hive king can use this ability once per day per character level.

At 5th level, hive king is able to take the lesser shape of **3** swarms. Separate swarms can act separately and have separate move actions.

At 8th level, hive king is able to take the greater shape of **5** swarms.Separate swarms can act separately and have separate move actions.
In all other respects, the swarm shape ability is identical to the druid's wild shape ability (see Chapter 3 of
the Player's Handbook).


- Pied Piper (Su):

At the 3rd level, a hive king is able to influence vermin to a limited extent. He can use this ability
once per day per level in this prestige class to charm a number of Hit Dice of vermin equal to or less than her
character level, starting with the lowest Hit Dice vermin within range and moving up in Hit Dice until the limit is
reached. The range of this effect is 10 feet × the hive king’s level. The vermin are allowed Will saves against this
effect (DC 14 + Cha modifier), and any that make their save cannot be affected again by the pied piper ability of
that hive king for one day.

Charmed vermin move toward the hive king at their land speed, taking the most direct path available. If the
path leads into a dangerous area, the creatures get another saving throw. Charmed vermin can take no actions
other than to defend themselves. If the hive king moves, the charmed vermin follow. This effect lasts for as
long as the hive king concentrates. Once concentration is broken, those vermin cannot be affected again by the
pied piper ability of that hive king for one day.



- Swarm Armor (Su):

Each day, a 4th-level hive king automatically summons a swarm of insects that cover his body when he regains his spells. These insects absorb up to 10 points of damage from
and single damaging attack (weapons or spells), the insects die off when they absorb such attacks, and a total
of up to 5 points per hive king level can be absorbed per day. Thus, a 7th-level hive king’s swarm armor can
absorb up to 35 points of damage, although no more than 10 points from any one attack. If a hive king is already wearing armor, the swarm armor has no effect. The armor protects the Hive King even in swarm shape and does not protect other members of the Hivemind(if present).



- Wings of the Vermin (Su):

A hive king of 5th level or higher can sprout massive, buzzing insectoid wings from
his back at will. With these wings, he can fly at his normal land speed with average maneuverability for as long
as the wings are active. The hive king can carry his normal carrying capacity, and greater burdens affect his
speed as they would affect his land speed. It is impossible to move silently with these wings. Summoning and
dismissing the wings is a move action.



- Flyblown (Su):

At the 7th level, a hive king can shift to a swarm shape and back as a free action.

- Spew Vermin (Sp):

Once per day, a 7th-level hive king is able to spray out a swarm of black butterflies from
his mouth, as a breath weapon in a 30-foot cone. Anyone in this area takes 1d6 points of damage per hive
king’s level, with a successful Reflex save reducing the damage by half (DC 10 + hive king’s class level + hive king’s Con bonus). These vermin then remain as if a summon swarm spell had been cast at the hive king’s class
level. The vermin are under the command of the hive king.



- Swarm Leap (Su):

At the 8th level, a hive king becomes completely attuned to the throb and hum of vermin
swarms, gaining the supernatural ability to instantaneously transport herself over great distances through that
medium. Once per day as a standard action, he can enter any swarm of mundane vermin and travel to another
such swarm in a single round, regardless of distance. The hive king merely designates a distance and direction
("a swarm 50 miles south of here"), and the swarm leap ability transports her to a destination swarm as close
as possible to the desired location. He can attempt to name a specific swarm ("a beehive in an apiary just
outside the city of Greyhawk"), but if no such target exists, the ability fails and the hive king is ejected from the
entry swarm.

Both the entry swarm and the destination swarm must be alive, but they can be either naturally
occurring or summoned. A hive king in swarm shape cannot use herself as the entry point, but he could enter
through an insect plague he created in a previous round. He could even use another hive king in swarm shape
as the entry or destination swarm. When exiting a swarm, the hive king must choose an adjacent 5-foot-by-5-
foot space in which to appear (or a correspondingly larger space if it is larger than Medium-size).
Except as noted here, this ability functions like the 6th-level druid spell transport via plants.


- Hivemind (Su):

A 10th-level hive king can reach the impetus of unity with vermin by creating a hivemind. He
becomes a true Hiveking and gains complete control over all Hivemind members, also benefiting from +1
insight bonus to attack rolls and AC. It’s important to note that even after becoming part of Hivemind,
individual members can still retain their individual personality (if any) if allowed by Hiveking.

A hivemind functions as one being and while it can have many member creatures, all of them have one
composite health (which consists of hiveking health + 1 member HD/per 4 members or swarms, at least 1)
when the health of a single individual hivemind member drops to 0, Hivemind as a whole takes this damage(1/2 of damage if it wasn't the Hive King)
while the individual member is reborn near the Hiveking next round. No more than 25 swarms can be gathered in one such hivemind at any given time, due to the immense amount of concentration required to subdue all of them.

All members of Hivemind excluding the Hiveking himself, get bonus feats and skill points based on Hiveking
intelligence bonus (for example, if Hiveking has INT 17, +3 bonus, hive members get 3 bonus feats and 3 bonus
skill points to distribute).
Individual hive members, if swarms are valid targets for hive king’s swarm leap.

Example
A swarm of black butterflies(22hp) takes critical damage of 30 damage points and disintegrates. The hivemind as a whole takes 10 points of damage. The next round the swarm reappears near the Hive King body and is ready to act again.






The Hive King Progression Table

| Level | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Special | Spells per Day/Spells Known |

| 1st | +0 | +0 | +0 | +2 | Chitin +1 | +1 level of existing class |
| 2nd | +1 | +0 | +0 | +3 | Swarm shape, Least | +1 level of existing class |
| 3rd | +2 | +1 | +1 | +3 | Pied Piper | +1 level of existing class |
| 4th | +3 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Chitin +2, Swarm Armour | +1 level of existing class |
| 5th | +3 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Wings of Vermin, Swarm Shape, Lesser | +1 level of existing class |
| 6th | +4 | +2 | +2 | +5 | Flyblown | +1 level of existing class |
| 7th | +5 | +2 | +2 | +5 | Chitin +3, Spew Vermin | +1 level of existing class |
| 8th | +6 | +2 | +2 | +6 | Swarm Leap, Swarm Shape, Greater | +1 level of existing class |
| 9th | +6 | +3 | +3 | +6 | — | +1 level of existing class |
| 10th | +7 | +4 | +3 | +7 | Chitin +4, Hive Mind | +1 level of existing class |




New swarms for SNA

| SNA lvl | Swarms |
| 2 | White butterfly, Spider[MM1], Bat[MM1] |
| 3 | Wasp[FF],Viper[FF] |
| 4 | Black butterfly, Blue butterfly, Locust[MM1], Apocalypse Frog[BoED],Air/Earth/Fire/Water Sprites |
| 5 | Green butterfly, Centipede[MM1], Swamp strider[MM3], Scorpion[Sandstorm], Plague Ants[FF] |
| 6 | Rapture Locusts[FF], Moth |
| 7 | Crimson butterfly, Hellwasp[MM1], Shimmerling swarm[MM3] |
| 8 | Bloodfiend Locusts[FF] |
| 9 | Sunfly swarm[BoED], Scarab beetle[FF], War Fairies |

Nirvana_Flame
2019-12-15, 03:00 PM
A link to a formated images of pdf

imgurcom/gallery/wcojE0R

NigelWalmsley
2019-12-15, 03:59 PM
Do not make casting PrCs that are not full casting. It just doesn't work as a balancing mechanism. In terms of specific remarks:

I think the bonus for Chitin should start higher. +1s are low impact and annoying to track. I think it would be better to start at +3 and go up by 1s from there.

It seems weird that Swarm Shape specifies "swarm of black butterflies". Is there a reason to not let people turn people into (mechanically identical) swarms of moths or wasps or whatever?

Nirvana_Flame
2019-12-16, 03:55 AM
Thanks for the feedback,


The reason why it's all butterflies everywhere is that the class was basically build for an NPC at my campaign and i tried to make it to "look less evil" (hence butterflies tickle instead of nauseating and cover instead of infesting), but I see an issue with this, so I'll try make it more general.

Maybe i can change swarm shape to be dependent on character's summoning ability?

Though this might need some tweaking since if i change the class to be full caster, it will increase its power in itself(Maybe i should increase the requirements?). May i ask why half(well, 6/10) casting doesn't work well as a balancing tool?

NigelWalmsley
2019-12-16, 08:01 AM
I think you should just let them pick whatever type of small bug (or maybe "small flying bug") they want for their swarm. It just feels weird to have a "vermin master" class that always does butterflies.

As far as casting goes, the issue is that it's very, very hard to actually calibrate things correctly such that the tradeoff is worthwhile (particularly because lost caster levels have a higher relative cost as the campaign goes on, while the class features just do whatever they do). As a result, people typically avoid partial casting PrCs. It's better to just make things full casting and accept that power level (or use Archmage style slot loss if you're really squeamish). However, if the class is just for a specific NPC, it doesn't matter as much.

Nirvana_Flame
2019-12-16, 12:38 PM
So I have done some changes to the class, by making it full caster and increasing chitin bonus.Beside that i also made swarm shape dependent on SNA level and made a table of new swarms added to the SNA summon list.Unsure how balanced the new list really is so looking for your reaction