Do I have to have Anim8tor to be able to vertex hack at all?
Yup. My com doesn't support anim8or so I know there's no other options then that.
Just my luck. -_-
You can do it with any program that can read or save as .3ds, I think.
But you need to export it with Anim8or for it to work with the vertex box. Otherwise you can't make the mdl0 for whichever character you mess with.