Artist: Lluis Abadias
I saw this image on Twitter today and.... I wanna play a Beedrill in D&D. So I started looking into how to do that.
The first thing I looked at was the lance, and whether there was a one-handed lance-like weapon that would mean you don't need Monkey Grip. I found that, if you're mounted, the lance is a one-handed weapon. Obviously this is based on the fact that, when a knight was using a lance, they would rest the business end of it on their mount. But the rules don't say anything about that, they just say that if you're mounted, the lance is a one handed weapon.
So now we need a mount, preferably something bee-like, and even more preferably, not actually a mount, just something that lets you interact with those rules.
There are a few ways to do that. One is to have a magic item you ride, such as a totally-not-a-broom of flying. Or maybe you enchant your pants with phantom steed and argue with your GM.
But, I would argue that the best way to do this is to be a centaur, because the centaur rules actually specifically say that centaurs deal double damage on a lance charge, as if they were mounted. This basically implies that centaurs count as being mounted. You can point to further rules reflecting this, such as Savage Species p109, which says "even centaur characters benefit from the later feats (of the Mounted Combat feat tree)" and Races of Faerun p132, which says "(...) centaurs can acquire the Spirited Charge and Trample feats (ignoring the prerequisites) and apply the benefits to their own melee attacks."
Ok, but that doesn't fit the aesthetic, now does it? So instead of literally being a centaur, you play a apitaur. That is to say, you use the Tauric template to be a bee-centaur. Or a wasp. If you want speed, you go with the giant bee and never use your stinger (or you argue with the GM about it), if you want a usable stinger, you use the giant wasp. The Giant Bee will give you 3 HD, while the Giant Wasp will give you 5 HD. You can get your hymenoptera on a couple of ways. One is wish, it's probably the simplest way. You just use your preferred method of getting a wish (summon an efreet, sacrifice some schmuck and get a 50 Kn. Religion, whatever). Another way is to use a Ritual of Unlearning/Vitality to swap your levels/XP for the ECL of a Bee/Wasp Tauric creature. This has the complication of needing to know what the hell the ECL of a Bee/Wasp Tauric creature is. So, if you can get it, wish is your best option. If you can't, because your GM is a dick and you know he'll twist your wish, or they're just reticent to let you get a wish, then, let's say that being a giant bee or giant wasp tauric creature has an ECL of CR+1. This means that it'd cost you 1000xp to become a giant bee taur, or 6000xp to become a giant wasp taur. It'll be easier to compare the two in a table:
| Giant Bee | Giant Wasp | |
| Size | Medium | Large |
| Speed | 20 ft, Fly 80 ft (Good) | 20 ft, Fly 60 ft (Good) |
| Natural Armor | +2 | +4 |
| Attack | Sting 1d4, poison* | Sting 1d3**, poison |
| Poison | 1d4 Con | 1d6 Dex |
| Ability Mods | +4 Dex | +8 Str, +2 Dex, +4 Con |
| Skills (if you care) | +4 Spot | +8 Spot |
*and argue with your GM about your badass adventurer not auto-dying because they stung someone
**Iunno why a larger bug has a smaller damage die
Giant Wasp is honestly probably more worthwhile overall. 20 ft of fly speed isn't really a big deal.
Ok, so now, you're an adventurer with a giant wasp for an ass. And you argue with the GM about how your centauroid body lets you use lances one handed for double damage on a charge. You, of course, take two-weapon fighting, and have two big-ass lances. You take Spirited Charge and Ride-by Attack, and now you're charging people, dealing two 3d8+~12 attacks, flying past them, and doing that every round.
What class are you? Well, Knight would fit the aesthetic, but I feel like the Knight Code doesn't fit a beedrill inspired character. Beedrills are totally pack ambush attackers. Duskblade would not be a terrible class choice, and when you can afford it, it lets you wear mithral full-plate and have no arcane spell failure. I'd forgive someone for wanting to go Cavalier, but... I just don't think it actually does enough for this character. Deadly Charge is nice, but... it just gives you an extra multiplier on your lance charge over Spirited Charge, a few times a day, and it doesn't stack with Spirited Charge, it requires you to have mounted combat feats, rather than helping you get them instead of spending your limited feats, is very focused on having a literal mount, and, again, it doesn't fit the whole Beedrill thing. Honestly, going Duskblade, then prestige classing into Abjurant Champion is... not a bad idea. You fly around, hitting people with your shocking grasp channeling lances, and you get slightly better abjuration armor buffs.
Also, I could totally see just being a barbarian. It seems really fitting.
Outside of martial classes, I could also see just being a warlock, even if it means spending another feat for lance proficiency. Quicken Spell-like Ability is amazing for a warlock and... well, it does interesting things when you're quickening Hideous Blow, because Hideous Blow specifically says that you make an attack. So you charge, cast a Quickened Hideous Blow for 3(lance)+Eldritch Blast damage, and then use a normal casting of Hideous Blow for... 3(lance)+Eldritch Blast damage. This presents the interesting question of what you're doing before you get your wasp-ass, but, I mean, you could just be a spear-wielding warlock who stabs people with evil fire until you can beseech the bee-gods to gift you a wasp-ass. I feel like there are some strong aesthetic options here. Baleful Utterance becomes an evil buzzing that shatters shit. Hungry Darkness becomes a cloud of unusually large wasps, bonus points if you unhinge your jaw and disgorge the swarm for ~Aesthetic~. Giant wasps and bees weirdly don't get a climb speed, so you use Spiderwalk. Devil's Sight and See the Unseen give you crazy bug eyes for their durations. About the only Greater invocation I consider fitting for this concept is Vitriolic Blast, so jumping out of Warlock after level 7 is a very defensible choice. If your GM will at least consider Tome stuff, Lurker in the Swarm would be quite fitting, if you can meet the spellcasting requirement. Perhaps making Vampiric Touch a lesser invocation (if you need to convince a GM that an invocation which mimics a specific spell is the same as being able to cast a spell for requirements, Complete Arcane p72 explicitly says this). If you're in a game using tome stuff, you also take the Veteran of the War background so you don't have to use a feat to get lance proficiency and some better armor.
