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Yes, but not at early levels, though you can start planning for it now with the character-defining feat "Child of Winter"

There are no clear parallels to "turning into a swarm from level 1 as just this thing, y'know?" that the swarm druids can do.

On the other hand, you might be able to pull off a Skitter without too much trouble. As you're not a drow, many of the "oooh, spiders!" options are not available to you. (Check out this thread for discussion reference)

You'll be focusing on the Child of Winter from ebberon.

You can use any druid spell that normally targets animals against vermin as well. A mindless vermin is considered to have an Intelligence score of 2 when dealing with you and can be charmed, calmed, or targeted by wild empathy or similar abilities. In addition, you can use your summon nature's ally spells to summon vermin.

You'll want to then progress into Vermin Keeper at 5th level, just to round things out. While there's some overlap in abilities, it's a natural progression and doesn't suck.

For scouting, you'll want things like Chain of Eyes (though that comes quite late for a druid) and may want to dip into binder for Malphas's bird's eye viewing. (Normally this is absolutely horrible advice, as dropping caster levels for anything at all is bloody stupid... but it is fun. If you only want bird's eye viewing, consider dropping a few feats into Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder. It doesn't cost you caster levels, and having a respawnable bird-scout can certainly be worth 2 feats in the right campaign. Reduce Animal will get that bird into very tiny spaces (and consider asking the DM to refluff it to some sort of flying roach (ew)) and may help the party remain competitive with the druid. the druid/2 spell summon swarm is good but not the only thing you're going to be spamming, especially as you can spontaneously summon spider swarms at the same level due to the child of winter feat.)

As a summoner-druid, there is a clear and protected niche for you in the party. Make sure to read the Druid Handbook. Consider instead City-Shape to the Vermin Lord PrC. Between City-Shape and the extended feats from Child of Winter, much of the Vermin Lord PrC can be achieved more quickly for less cost, leaving your mid levels open for more campaign-appropriate PrCs.

Note this post for giving up normal wild shape, you are paying a high price for flavour.

Yes, but not at early levels, though you can start planning for it now with the character-defining feat "Child of Winter"

There are no clear parallels to "turning into a swarm from level 1 as just this thing, y'know?" that the swarm druids can do.

On the other hand, you might be able to pull off a Skitter without too much trouble. As you're not a drow, many of the "oooh, spiders!" options are not available to you. (Check out this thread for discussion reference)

You'll be focusing on the Child of Winter from ebberon.

You can use any druid spell that normally targets animals against vermin as well. A mindless vermin is considered to have an Intelligence score of 2 when dealing with you and can be charmed, calmed, or targeted by wild empathy or similar abilities. In addition, you can use your summon nature's ally spells to summon vermin.

You'll want to then progress into Vermin Keeper at 5th level, just to round things out. While there's some overlap in abilities, it's a natural progression and doesn't suck.

For scouting, you'll want things like Chain of Eyes (though that comes quite late for a druid) or Spider Hand (1st level, creates a small spider you can see through) and may want to dip into binder for Malphas's bird's eye viewing. (Normally this is absolutely horrible advice, as dropping caster levels for anything at all is bloody stupid... but it is fun. If you only want bird's eye viewing, consider dropping a few feats into Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder. It doesn't cost you caster levels, and having a respawnable bird-scout can certainly be worth 2 feats in the right campaign. Reduce Animal will get that bird into very tiny spaces (and consider asking the DM to refluff it to some sort of flying roach (ew)) and may help the party remain competitive with the druid. the druid/2 spell summon swarm is good but not the only thing you're going to be spamming, especially as you can spontaneously summon spider swarms at the same level due to the child of winter feat.)

As a summoner-druid, there is a clear and protected niche for you in the party. Make sure to read the Druid Handbook. Consider instead City-Shape to the Vermin Lord PrC. Between City-Shape and the extended feats from Child of Winter, much of the Vermin Lord PrC can be achieved more quickly for less cost, leaving your mid levels open for more campaign-appropriate PrCs.

Note this post for giving up normal wild shape, you are paying a high price for flavour.

No, but you can fake it.

There are no clear parallels to "turning into a swarm from level 1 as just this thing, y'know?" that the swarm druids can do.

On the other hand, you might be able to pull off a Skitter without too much trouble. As you're not a drow, many of the "oooh, spiders!" options are not available to you. (Check out this thread for discussion reference)

You'll be focusing on the Child of Winter from ebberon.

You can use any druid spell that normally targets animals against vermin as well. A mindless vermin is considered to have an Intelligence score of 2 when dealing with you and can be charmed, calmed, or targeted by wild empathy or similar abilities. In addition, you can use your summon nature's ally spells to summon vermin.

You'll want to then progress into Vermin Keeper at 5th level, just to round things out. While there's some overlap in abilities, it's a natural progression and doesn't suck.

For scouting, you'll want things like Chain of Eyes (though that comes quite late for a druid) and may want to dip into binder for Malphas's bird's eye viewing. (Normally this is absolutely horrible advice, as dropping caster levels for anything at all is bloody stupid... but it is fun. If you only want bird's eye viewing, consider dropping a few feats into Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder. It doesn't cost you caster levels, and having a respawnable bird-scout can certainly be worth 2 feats in the right campaign. Reduce Animal will get that bird into very tiny spaces (and consider asking the DM to refluff it to some sort of flying roach (ew)) and may help the party remain competitive with the druid. the druid/2 spell summon swarm is good but not the only thing you're going to be spamming, especially as you can spontaneously summon spider swarms at the same level due to the child of winter feat.)

As a summoner-druid, there is a clear and protected niche for you in the party. Make sure to read the Druid Handbook. Consider instead City-Shape to the Vermin Lord PrC. Between City-Shape and the extended feats from Child of Winter, much of the Vermin Lord PrC can be achieved more quickly for less cost, leaving your mid levels open for more campaign-appropriate PrCs.

Note this post for giving up normal wild shape, you are paying a high price for flavour.

Yes, but not at early levels, though you can start planning for it now with the character-defining feat "Child of Winter"

There are no clear parallels to "turning into a swarm from level 1 as just this thing, y'know?" that the swarm druids can do.

On the other hand, you might be able to pull off a Skitter without too much trouble. As you're not a drow, many of the "oooh, spiders!" options are not available to you. (Check out this thread for discussion reference)

You'll be focusing on the Child of Winter from ebberon.

You can use any druid spell that normally targets animals against vermin as well. A mindless vermin is considered to have an Intelligence score of 2 when dealing with you and can be charmed, calmed, or targeted by wild empathy or similar abilities. In addition, you can use your summon nature's ally spells to summon vermin.

You'll want to then progress into Vermin Keeper at 5th level, just to round things out. While there's some overlap in abilities, it's a natural progression and doesn't suck.

For scouting, you'll want things like Chain of Eyes (though that comes quite late for a druid) and may want to dip into binder for Malphas's bird's eye viewing. (Normally this is absolutely horrible advice, as dropping caster levels for anything at all is bloody stupid... but it is fun. If you only want bird's eye viewing, consider dropping a few feats into Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder. It doesn't cost you caster levels, and having a respawnable bird-scout can certainly be worth 2 feats in the right campaign. Reduce Animal will get that bird into very tiny spaces (and consider asking the DM to refluff it to some sort of flying roach (ew)) and may help the party remain competitive with the druid. the druid/2 spell summon swarm is good but not the only thing you're going to be spamming, especially as you can spontaneously summon spider swarms at the same level due to the child of winter feat.)

As a summoner-druid, there is a clear and protected niche for you in the party. Make sure to read the Druid Handbook. Consider instead City-Shape to the Vermin Lord PrC. Between City-Shape and the extended feats from Child of Winter, much of the Vermin Lord PrC can be achieved more quickly for less cost, leaving your mid levels open for more campaign-appropriate PrCs.

Note this post for giving up normal wild shape, you are paying a high price for flavour.

No, but you can fake it.

There are no clear parallels to "turning into a swarm from level 1 as just this thing, y'know?" that the swarm druids can do.

On the other hand, you might be able to pull off a Skitter without too much trouble. As you're not a drow, many of the "oooh, spiders!" options are not available to you. (Check out this thread for discussion reference)

You'll be focusing on the Child of Winter from ebberon.

You can use any druid spell that normally targets animals against vermin as well. A mindless vermin is considered to have an Intelligence score of 2 when dealing with you and can be charmed, calmed, or targeted by wild empathy or similar abilities. In addition, you can use your summon nature's ally spells to summon vermin.

You'll want to then progress into Vermin Keeper at 5th level, just to round things out. While there's some overlap in abilities, it's a natural progression and doesn't suck.

For scouting, you'll want things like Chain of Eyes (though that comes quite late for a druid) and may want to dip into binder for Malphas's bird's eye viewing. (Normally this is absolutely horrible advice, as dropping caster levels for anything at all is bloody stupid... but it is fun. If you only want bird's eye viewing, consider dropping a few feats into Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder. It doesn't cost you caster levels, and having a respawnable bird-scout can certainly be worth 2 feats in the right campaign. Reduce Animal will get that bird into very tiny spaces (and consider asking the DM to refluff it to some sort of flying roach (ew)) and may help the party remain competitive with the druid. )

No, but you can fake it.

There are no clear parallels to "turning into a swarm from level 1 as just this thing, y'know?" that the swarm druids can do.

On the other hand, you might be able to pull off a Skitter without too much trouble. As you're not a drow, many of the "oooh, spiders!" options are not available to you. (Check out this thread for discussion reference)

You'll be focusing on the Child of Winter from ebberon.

You can use any druid spell that normally targets animals against vermin as well. A mindless vermin is considered to have an Intelligence score of 2 when dealing with you and can be charmed, calmed, or targeted by wild empathy or similar abilities. In addition, you can use your summon nature's ally spells to summon vermin.

You'll want to then progress into Vermin Keeper at 5th level, just to round things out. While there's some overlap in abilities, it's a natural progression and doesn't suck.

For scouting, you'll want things like Chain of Eyes (though that comes quite late for a druid) and may want to dip into binder for Malphas's bird's eye viewing. (Normally this is absolutely horrible advice, as dropping caster levels for anything at all is bloody stupid... but it is fun. If you only want bird's eye viewing, consider dropping a few feats into Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder. It doesn't cost you caster levels, and having a respawnable bird-scout can certainly be worth 2 feats in the right campaign. Reduce Animal will get that bird into very tiny spaces (and consider asking the DM to refluff it to some sort of flying roach (ew)) and may help the party remain competitive with the druid. the druid/2 spell summon swarm is good but not the only thing you're going to be spamming, especially as you can spontaneously summon spider swarms at the same level due to the child of winter feat.)

As a summoner-druid, there is a clear and protected niche for you in the party. Make sure to read the Druid Handbook. Consider instead City-Shape to the Vermin Lord PrC. Between City-Shape and the extended feats from Child of Winter, much of the Vermin Lord PrC can be achieved more quickly for less cost, leaving your mid levels open for more campaign-appropriate PrCs.

Note this post for giving up normal wild shape, you are paying a high price for flavour.