Drood build, Initiate of Nature [3.5]

[faceroll]

I found this feat, Initiate of Nature (PGtF) while perusing the Druid Handbook at BG, and it looks solid. The Handbook says you get animals worth HDxlevelx2, but when I look up the rules for controlling rebuked undead, it says you only get HD = level. Anyone know how to get more animals controlled with this ability? If you can't is it worth it?

I'm thinking of making a druid caster build with natural bond, initiate of nature, and wild cohort, and am curious if the feat investment is worth it.

Would the following be worth it, in your opinion:
Dipping one level of hospitaler (defenders of the faith variety) for +1 druid casting, all cleric spells, turning, lay on hands, and two domains chosen from glory, domination, war, protection and healing. Requirements are +4 bab, nonchaotic, 5 ranks ride & handle animal, and mounted combat & ride-by attack. I also am not allowed to commit evil acts (but hanging out with evil dudes and not doing the right thing are presumably ok).

Druids get some truly broken spells, and I'm uncertain if expanding my list like that is worth it. Getting turning for DMM is nice, but again, more feat investment.

[Sophismata]

I found this feat, Initiate of Nature (PGtF) while perusing the Druid Handbook at BG, and it looks solid. The Handbook says you get animals worth HDxlevelx2, but when I look up the rules for controlling rebuked undead, it says you only get HD = level. Anyone know how to get more animals controlled with this ability? If you can't is it worth it?

Since specific trumps general, you control and rebuke animals as a cleric controls and rebukes undead, except that you may have twice your HD in animals.

[faceroll]

Since specific trumps general, you control and rebuke animals as a cleric controls and rebukes undead, except that you may have twice your HD in animals.

The handbook at BG says 2xHD, and I'm not sure where they're getting that. The feat just says it's like a cleric.

[Pluto]

If you can't is it worth it?
I'm going to say no, even if you can control 2xCL: you have Wild Empathy, Handle Animal, Charm Animal, Dominate Animal, etc. already. You're already far past the point of redundancy as far as animal control is concerned.


Dipping one level of hospitaler (defenders of the faith variety) for +1 druid casting, all cleric spells, turning, lay on hands, and two domains chosen from glory, domination, war, protection and healing. Requirements are +4 bab, nonchaotic, 5 ranks ride & handle animal, and mounted combat & ride-by attack. I also am not allowed to commit evil acts (but hanging out with evil dudes and not doing the right thing are presumably ok). If that's actually how it works, do it. No question.

edit: My god, that is by fsr the worst-written advancement text I've seen.

[Sophismata]

The handbook at BG says 2xHD, and I'm not sure where they're getting that. The feat just says it's like a cleric.

In that case, it's just HD. I thought the OP said the feat stated 2xHD, but cleric rebuking is normally just HD.

[trazwald]

The feat is in Player's guide to Faerun, and I'm pretty sure it IS, in fact, 2xCL in HD of animals. I rationalize it by the fact that undead, per HD, are somewhat more threatening? I could be wrong. Either way, I like the build, but I wouldn't say hospitaler is worth it. Mounted combat & ride-by-attack are wasted feats, and the bennies are... meh.
In my books anyway.

[senrath]

The feat is in Player's guide to Faerun, and I'm pretty sure it IS, in fact, 2xCL in HD of animals.

It's not. It simply says "as an evil cleric rebukes or commands undead."

[Coidzor]

3.5 Player's Guide to Faerun, page 81, just says "as an evil cleric rebukes or commands undead." No mention of 2xHD or 2xCL.


I found this feat, Initiate of Nature (PGtF) while perusing the Druid Handbook at BG, and it looks solid. The Handbook says you get animals worth HDxlevelx2, but when I loohttp://www.giantitp.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=8023293k up the rules for controlling rebuked undead, it says you only get HD = level. Anyone know how to get more animals controlled with this ability? If you can't is it worth it? No, I don't think there's any way to boost the number of HD controllable, so I don't think it's really worth it, at least for a druid. And clerics usually PrC out, so it's only of real use to a cleric who stays single classed. And at 20th level you can get two 10 HD animals. Maybe, if increasing their HD after you've commanded them wouldn't cause them to go uncontrolled, you could add the warbeast template to them for two 11 HD animals.


I'm thinking of making a druid caster build with natural bond, initiate of nature, and wild cohort, and am curious if the feat investment is worth it. Well, druids don't really need natural bond, though it may allow more powerful forms of Animal Companion earlier, but that depends on the DM's adjudication of the matter. Wild Cohort is a decent feat, and better than initiate of nature, since there's no question of whether warbeasting either your wild cohort or your animal companion will make them uncontrolled.

If natural bond can apply to wild cohort, then it becomes almost equal to the secondary animal companion that Beastmaster 3 or 4 gives, and if natural bond and beastmaster's boost stack for wild cohort, it becomes almost equal to a regular druid's animal companion, enough to be competitive with it. So if natural bond would work with both, then both feats become a worthwhile option for increasing your melee capabilities.


Would the following be worth it, in your opinion:
Dipping one level of hospitaler (defenders of the faith variety) for +1 druid casting, all cleric spells, turning, lay on hands, and two domains chosen from glory, domination, war, protection and healing. Requirements are +4 bab, nonchaotic, 5 ranks ride & handle animal, and mounted combat & ride-by attack. I also am not allowed to commit evil acts (but hanging out with evil dudes and not doing the right thing are presumably ok).

Considering if you're riding your companion and have mounted combat you can help negate hits to it and if it's large enough for you to ride it can get reach so that you can still cast from its back without needing to do it defensively all the time and this also opens up Divine Metamagic, I would say it is worth it to certain druids.

Especially since you don't lose anything but the opportunity cost of dipping another prestige class at that level if you qualify via items which you can most likely afford at least one of by that point or feats which are retrained once you can afford the items. As both mounted combat and ride-by attack are obtainable via items such as riding boots(MIC) and I think a form of magical reins(also MIC?).

If you don't have access to feat re-training or the Magic Item Compendium, then, it definitely becomes much, much more niche.

[trazwald]

3.5 Player's Guide to Faerun, page 81, just says "as an evil cleric rebukes or commands undead." No mention of 2xHD or 2xCL.


I stand corrected :smallredface:

I still think it's a pretty solid feat, but it depends on how you want to play:

If you just want a gang of badass animals to fight along side you, you can accomplish that just using Handle Animal, Wild Empathy and maybe a bit of Speak with Animals. However, this implies that you're training the animals, and any good DM will want you to actually go through the process and explain what you're training them for and how. At least saying "I trained this Dire Tiger to pounce on spellcasters when I whistle", along with the appropriate Handle Animal check and time spent.
What this feat really does is let you just walk up to that dire tiger and, if you make a high enough turning check, tell it to pounce on the wizard. No Handle Animal ranks needed, no need to spend the time training it. So basically any animals you encounter you can immediately command (provided you make the check). Pretty sweet, if you ask me.
BUT, there are two main problems with this feat/ability:

1. the PHB states "if you have twice as many levels (or more) as the undead (animals) have hit dice, they are destroyed (commanded)", meaning you can only "command" animals with HD=1/2xCL, and "at any one time the (druid) can command any number of (animals) whose total HD do not exceed his level".

2. totally depends on charisma:
in order to determine the highest HD of any animal you can rebuke/command in a given attempt, you make a charisma check (1d20+your Cha, see the "turn or rebuke undead" table in the "special attacks" section of "combat" in the Player's Handbook), and based on that check, you can rebuke animals of an HD relative to your own (from -4 to +4). Once you've determined whether you can rebuke the animal, you roll 2d6+CL+your Cha: this is the total number of HD you can rebuke. It's nice to have a bit of Cha as a druid anyway, but it's not really worth it if your Druid has a negative Cha mod.

On the upside, if I were running the campaign (and some people may disagree with this) I would allow the druid to "bolster" animals, as an evil cleric does undead (PHB, same section as turning). Meaning you make a "turning" check (in the same way that you would determine the max HD of an animal you can "turn"), and the HD yielded in his "turning" check becomes your animals' HD. This lasts 10 rounds. The feat doesn't specify one way or another if you can or can't use this ability, but it could be rationalized by the fact that this is a part of the evil cleric's ability to rebuke/command undead. Similarly, I would allow the druid to dispel turning attempts on his animals, should anyone be somehow able to turn them.

Let's hypothesize:
Druid lv. 6, +1 cha.
1d20+1= (10)+1= 11 (on a mediocre roll)
The max. HD of any animal you can affect is 6 (your level, based on table: turning undead, PHB don't know what page)
roll 2d6+6+1= 13 (assuming two mediocre rolls)
you can rebuke 13 HD of animals.
that means you can rebuke two brown bears (but you can't command them, you can only command animals whose HD=your level/2) and an eagle (this guy you can command)

In this case, your "turning check" allowed you to "rebuke" 13 HD, but you can only control a max of 6

Assuming you're just going to some space with a bunch of animals (or if someone SNA's you), you can command 2 leopards, 3 wolves, 6 eagles or 24 ravens.
Now bolster them:
turning check= 1d20+1= (10)+ 1= 11 (on another mediocre roll, but we'll see that even with crappy rolls, this can be really sweet.)

the animals now all have an effective HD= 6(your druid level) for 10 rounds.

Even if this means you can't control them anymore, you just gave 3 wolves 6HD apiece, and I don't think whoever you're fighting is going to be happy about that. If this DOESN'T mean you can't control them anymore (which a thorough DM probably wouldn't allow), well, you get the idea.

CONCLUSION: This feat will let you acquire animal minions on the spot, and, if your DM allows it, bolster them too. Without bolstering it's ok, has some good flavour and could come in handy. With bolstering, you can have an army of guerilla-warrior sparrows (note that even if you roll a 1 in determining the effect of bolstering, the animals gain effective HD= your level- 3, or 3HD. 24 ravens with 3HD each could take out a lot of low-level opponents, leaving you free to handle the big boys).

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I really like druids, and I actually recently built a similar one of my own:
gnome druid 7th, leopard animal companion. companion spellbond, natural bond, natural spell and maybe initiate of nature at 9th.
I've built several small-sized druids with leopard animal companions now, and i really enjoy using the companion as a mount (leopards make EXCELLENT mounts, btw). Animal cohort is another possibility, but I've been thinking of just using Handle Animal to train some birds as scouts and wolves as back-up.
Again, sorry for the huge post...:smallredface:

[Coidzor]

What this feat really does is let you just walk up to that dire tiger and, if you make a high enough turning check, tell it to pounce on the wizard. No Handle Animal ranks needed, no need to spend the time training it. So basically any animals you encounter you can immediately command (provided you make the check). Pretty sweet, if you ask me.

Actually, a fun thing, by the time you qualify for the feat, you can't fail to command creatures you're capable of commanding in the first place. Whoops, misread that as 5th level spells, not 5th level in the class, haha. x.x So that's two levels where you can fail to command a creature you're capable of commanding by rolling low. The lowest turning check result you can get, by rolling a 0 or lower, is Level - 4. So after level 8, commanding undead/elementals/plants/animals can't fail if you could command them in the first place. Unless I'm mis-remembering turn resistance's role in the ability to command them anyway.

Now, whether there's a way to bolster one's effective level for the purpose of commanding animals... I dunno. If there is, then rawsome. If "as a cleric rebukes or commands undead" is interpreted liberally, then boosts to one's level for the purpose of turning or rebuking could also be applied. Don't think it's possible to be liberal enough to apply the negative turn resistance items to animals/plants though...

[Urpriest]

It has been mentioned that Natural Bond's ability to offset the penalty for a more powerful animal companion is controversial. I would like to point out that applying Warbeast to a preexisting animal is also controversial. So use either at your own risk.

[Coidzor]

Now bolster them:
turning check= 1d20+1= (10)+ 1= 11 (on another mediocre roll, but we'll see that even with crappy rolls, this can be really sweet.)

the animals now all have an effective HD= 6(your druid level) for 10 rounds.

Even if this means you can't control them anymore, you just gave 3 wolves 6HD apiece, and I don't think whoever you're fighting is going to be happy about that. If this DOESN'T mean you can't control them anymore (which a thorough DM probably wouldn't allow), well, you get the idea.

You're misreading that. Bolstering (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#turnOrRebukeUndead) doesn't increase their HD except as far as turning is concerned, so this is of limited use due to it only really coming up against individuals who can turn or rebuke plants or animals.


Bolstering Undead

An evil cleric may also bolster undead creatures against turning in advance. He makes a turning check as if attempting to rebuke the undead, but the Hit Dice result on Table: Turning Undead becomes the undead creatures’ effective Hit Dice as far as turning is concerned (provided the result is higher than the creatures’ actual Hit Dice). The bolstering lasts 10 rounds. An evil undead cleric can bolster himself in this manner.

[Urpriest]

Warbeast being in play isn't a guarantee, sure, but applying it to an already extant animal? The template has rules for training an animal to be a warbeast.

Actually, given the DCs, that section looks like it's intended to be rules for training a preexisting warbeast, not rules for making an animal into a warbeast. You can't really rear a preexisting animal, for example. And vermin can be warbeasts, but can't be trained, as it states right in that section. Also, all of the DCs match up to the normal DCs to rear animals, and scale like the ones used to train them.


But why should I tell them it's controversial when it only matters whether it's good for their game and it's their own duty to familiarize themselves with things. If they're going to purposefully misrepresent information to their group, then stating it's controversial here won't do anything. :smallconfused:

Also, note the ifs, sir, there's no need to chew me out for mentioning it, but since you're so insistent, I'll go back and bold them.

Hadn't noticed quite the profusion of ifs. And I'm not chastising you. Just pointing out that some of this stuff is controversial. Some people asking for advice on these forums tend to take what we say as gospel and not look up the details, so it's always good to mention when something is mildly cheesy.

[trazwald]

You're misreading that. Bolstering (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#turnOrRebukeUndead) doesn't increase their HD except as far as turning is concerned, so this is of limited use due to it only really coming up against individuals who can turn or rebuke plants or animals.

Again, corrected :(

Rats, as you can tell, I got really excited about the possibilities there, but it would be so clearly unbalanced that I'm kinda surprised I believed it :smallredface:

I guess it's not that good of a feat after all, but it would still let you get on-the-spot minions, which would be nice in an animal-heavy or just generally woodland campaign.

[faceroll]

I ended up playing a druid//cloistered cleric instead. Using Natural bond to mitigate cost of a Fleshrender (muahaha), and it's also a warbeast. All feats are spent on extra turning to fuel divine metamagic: persist.

[Gavinfoxx]

I ended up playing a druid//cloistered cleric instead. Using Natural bond to mitigate cost of a Fleshrender (muahaha), and it's also a warbeast. All feats are spent on extra turning to fuel divine metamagic: persist.

You need natural spell, of course!

I presume the DM has demoted Nightsticks to "Not stacking, you get one.", and you already have your Nightstick and Reliquary holy symbol?

[faceroll]

You need natural spell, of course!

Naturally. :smallbiggrin:


I presume the DM has demoted Nightsticks to "Not stacking, you get one.", and you already have your Nightstick and Reliquary holy symbol?

Actually, we've been in the jungle since level 1 (level 8 party now, though I am level 7). Nowhere to get said night sticks. Not even sure how much wealth we got.

But I will be trying to get some nightstick stacking going on.

Also, it's a half-minotaur anthrobat, so my current wisdom score is like 32. No magic, either. Can't wait until I can persist owl's insight. Good times.

[Gavinfoxx]

Naturally. :smallbiggrin:



Actually, we've been in the jungle since level 1 (level 8 party now, though I am level 7). Nowhere to get said night sticks. Not even sure how much wealth we got.

But I will be trying to get some nightstick stacking going on.

Also, it's a half-minotaur anthrobat, so my current wisdom score is like 32. No magic, either. Can't wait until I can persist owl's insight. Good times.

Wow, sounds like you guys need an Artificer in the group, and to go around questing for rare woods and rare material components and stuff and just enchant some tools and then make your own items...

[faceroll]

Wow, sounds like you guys need an Artificer in the group, and to go around questing for rare woods and rare material components and stuff and just enchant some tools and then make your own items...

Alright, get this. There's a domain druid variant in UA that gives you turning. Naturally I am using that variant. Then I am using the variant from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft that changes turning from a class into an alternate turning. So now the 4 extra turns I get from the undeath domain become 8 turn attempts. Cool, huh?

With 32 wisdom and double divine casting, I AM the party's magical items.