Need help. What would a Bee-caster do?

[SangoProduction]

I've got a character who's going to take the Hive class at level 6, which allows them to summon swarms. Clearly it's a bunch of bees and hornets and what have you.

And that was a cool idea.... but no I'm actually building the character... and I do just kinda feel uncharacteristically lost.
Could be combined factors, like the stress of the injury, and then the water heater exploding, and so on. But I am legitimately not finding many things that such a narrow concept actually wants to do.

I've got the ability to train swarms, including to do Heavy Hauling. So, the bee swarm is my work dog. And the attack dog. Which is conceptually fun. I can also summon structures made of "wax" (force, but refluffed). And of course, has the requisite extradimensional space to house the swarms.
And I've taken some Alchemy talents to represent pheromone and mead-production. A few tech sphere talents (including a rocket launcher, fluffed as launching very angry hornet nests)... because it's a gnome.
And lastly, he's supposed to be a Science Gnome... so I got a class feature to reroll knowledge rolls up to 8 times / day.

I don't really want to be a not-spell caster. First of all, because the summoned objects, and extradimensional space scale with caster level... and because the only non-casting spheres I can think that I would want in any way would be Alchemy (but not really, because of splash damage... while using swarms), and Tech (which is a bit of a hodgepodge sphere, and deemphasizes the swarm deal).

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I could take War sphere's Momentum talents, which are just rather generic "helper" talents. Kinda slot into any build. Talekinesis.... is a horrible sphere, and is even worse for a non-full caster. And I've got the literal swarms to do that for me. But it does kinda feel... Hmm. Yes. Being able to "command" specific actions from "a swarm," beyond that normally accomplished by it on its turn... aka moving and doing passive, distracting damage... is kinda neat. Eh... Yeah. No. I think I need help. I'm not overly enthused.

But I want the concept to work.

[Maat Mons]

I'm not sure if it will help, but you could try to glean ideas from the Dr. Bees (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL06e6JGoqxw3isFtGD5zXKee9LTrQABsu) videos.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Nemesis (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/nemesis-worm-au.54757/) is an extremely funny and very well-written Worm fanfic (very firmly NOT crack) with a protagonist who has BEEEEES! as her shtick. It's great, and it has a ton of fantastic omakes. It's also over on SpaceBattles (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nemesis-worm-au.747148/), and the omakes are different for each.

You could always bee an entomanthrope. Basically a bee-canthrope. There's a template (https://web.archive.org/web/20201112005748/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040621a) for it online.

Also, refluff your spells with a BEEEEES! theme. Like, magic missile is BEEEEES! attacking, and wall of force is a translucent honeycomb.

[AsuraKyoko]

Nemesis (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/nemesis-worm-au.54757/) is an extremely funny and very well-written Worm fanfic (very firmly NOT crack) with a protagonist who has BEEEEES! as her shtick. It's great, and it has a ton of fantastic omakes. It's also over on SpaceBattles (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nemesis-worm-au.747148/), and the omakes are different for each.

You could always bee an entomanthrope. Basically a bee-canthrope. There's a template (https://web.archive.org/web/20201112005748/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040621a) for it online.

Also, refluff your spells with a BEEEEES! theme. Like, magic missile is BEEEEES! attacking, and wall of force is a translucent honeycomb.

I can also recommend Worm (https://parahumans.wordpress.com/) itself as a story. As mentioned, the protagonist has the ability to control bugs, and uses that very creatively. For example, she uses larger flying bugs to carry spiders to entangle enemies in webbing, and she uses spiders to weave clothing.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I can also recommend Worm (https://parahumans.wordpress.com/) itself as a story. As mentioned, the protagonist has the ability to control bugs, and uses that very creatively. For example, she uses larger flying bugs to carry spiders to entangle enemies in webbing, and she uses spiders to weave clothing.Unfortunately, the way she uses them is pretty dumb from anything resembling real-life bugs. It'd take thousands of times as many spiders as Taylor uses to produce that much webbing, and way more insects to move the weight that she makes them move. Sure, spider silk is stronger than steel, but the amount one spider produces is so tiny that to trip someone with a rope made from it or to tie opponents up would require so many spiders that she literally couldn't fit them all in the space required to make it.

So take it with a grain of salt, although this IS D&D we're talking about porting it to, so...

Also, Worm is one of the most depressing and frustrating stories I've come across this side of Berserk.

[AsuraKyoko]

Unfortunately, the way she uses them is pretty dumb from anything resembling real-life bugs. It'd take thousands of times as many spiders as Taylor uses to produce that much webbing, and way more insects to move the weight that she makes them move. Sure, spider silk is stronger than steel, but the amount one spider produces is so tiny that to trip someone with a rope made from it or to tie opponents up would require so many spiders that she literally couldn't fit them all in the space required to make it.

So take it with a grain of salt, although this IS D&D we're talking about porting it to, so...

Also, Worm is one of the most depressing and frustrating stories I've come across this side of Berserk.

Given that we are talking about doing bug-themed things with magic, I think realism is less important.

I don't think Worm is that depressing, really. It's not exactly a happy series, and it gets pretty dark, but it's definitely not on the level of Berserk.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I don't think Worm is that depressing, really. It's not exactly a happy series, and it gets pretty dark, but it's definitely not on the level of Berserk.The fan catch-phrase for the series is "everything gets worse." And it started with a girl getting bullied into attempting suicide via supervillains.

[AsuraKyoko]

The fan catch-phrase for the series is "everything gets worse." And it started with a girl getting bullied into attempting suicide via supervillains.

I don't think this is the place to argue about Worm, so let's just agree to disagree. Regardless, if you are interested in a dark story about superheroes and supervillains, and about the dangers of using a cell phone while driving, Worm is a good read. It's quite long, though.

[Talwar]

I like the idea of re-skinning spells so that they work with bees.

Use bees to scout nearby terrain for enemies, or to search larger areas for items or creatures. When there's a success, the bee flies back and does a little dance that the caster can interpret to mean, "Six orcs in the glade beyond the hill".

Bees as ablative armor, or visual cover.

Tenser's Floating Disk of Bees

Leomund's Tiny Hut of Bees

[TerrickTerran]

Never did it with bees, but I did it years ago with luck spells. Reskinning really enhances the flavor of a caster.

[Rynjin]

The most important thing for any person is to just bee yourself.

[Tzardok]

The worst thing for a bee caster to bee is non-beenary. :smalltongue:

[YellowJohn]

I feel it would be remiss of me not to mention (Mordenkainen's) Buzzing Bee (Spell Compendium). It conjures a bee which follows casters around, being annoying and distracting them as they try to cast spells.

[ShurikVch]

Evil TO option: Vermin Lord PrC (Book of Vile Darkness) with Hivemind class feature can get gazillion CL - depending on number of your bees
(Reminds me about one isekai story, in which protagonist became a god; his "power source" was magical pollen - collected by magical bees. Stuff was finite, but could be unshaped and reused)