3.5 Druid for a New Player

[Chilingsworth]

I recently got my fiance to join my gaming group. She's become sufficently hooked to want a back-up character (rather than just quitting if her character is rendered unplayable and unrestorable.) She's shown interest in playing a druid because she likes plants, animals, etc. and got that result when she took a "what class are you?" test.
Sadly, I'm not particularly familiar with the druid class. Also, I made her current character and am not confident I did an adequate job. Please help??

Stats: level 15, 32 point buy
Races: any available in Faerun
Sources: Core, Completes, PHII, all the 3.5 WOTC Monster Manuals(I-V), Spell Compendium, All FR sources that are 3.5, the paragon classes from Unearthed Arcana.

*EDIT* Forgot some other allowed sources: The MIC, as well as all the Races books, except for Races of Ebberon. My bad. :smallredface:

[WarKitty]

Druids are actually pretty hard to mess up. Take a fairly beefy animal companion. Get natural spell at level 6. Focus on your Wis and Con. Produce flame is a good staple spell for early levels. Once you hit level 5 you get wild shape - wolves, black bears, and leopards are all good forms.

Edit: level 15, duh.

[bokodasu]

Honestly, all you need to know is Human, Wisdom, and Natural Spell. If you've got those three things, you have a pretty fantastic druid. Oh, and dump Str & Dex.

Even if you ignore that and make a half-orc with a 16 Wis and 14 Str, as long as you've got Natural Spell, you're still a superfun powerhouse.

[Tvtyrant]

How optimized is your group? Would letting her have Planar Shepard be acceptable? She doesn't know what she is doing yet, so it would be a crutch.

At level 15 the Druid is based around Wildshaped Spellcasting. That means that her scores in Strength, Dex and Con are meaningless. Have her boost Wisdom to 18 and int to 14 and char to whatever is left. She has plant, tiny, small, medium, large and huge wildshape forms by this level, so she is golden there.

What you need to do is find some forms for her to wildshape into that match different events; these forms are easiest to access by going through the animal and plant sections and finding ones she likes (I like the T-rex!) and then making note cards of their stats. Get around 10-20 notecards filled out with roles for:
1. Combat direct: T-rex, Dire Elephant, etc.
2. Combat but can use items: Dire Ape and Dreadful Ape essentially.
3. A flying one that is tiny like a hummingbird, and one that is huge like a pteradon.
4. A digging form of each size ratio.
5. A plant (probably shambling mound) for the immunities
6. A grappling form like a dire crocodile or Giant Octopus, essentially something that wrestles well.
7. Etc.

Remember you need to be able to cast as an animal or plant, so the Natural Spell feat is a must (its core).

[bokodasu]

Oh, right, and familiarize yourself with what you do (ex attacks, movement) and don't (ex abilities, HP) get while wildshaped. If your DM allows Enhance Wildshape and Bites of the Werethingies, then use them, but don't be surprised if (when) they get banned.

[Telonius]

Druid is very hard to mess up as far as character building is concerned. It is somewhat easy to mess up where tactics and gameplay are considered.

For a very new player, a Druid can seriously slow down gameplay. This is because you have to deal with all of this:
- The Druid's character sheet
- The Animal Companion's sheet
- Selecting spells each day from a fairly extensive list
- Figuring out several different stat blocks, depending on what the Druid is going to Wildshape into
- The standard Summoner's problem of having to know and understand the strengths and weaknesses of all of the things she can summon

All of that stuff can be really intimidating to a new player. If she doesn't pick up on the mechanics really quick, it can get very ugly very quickly.

Before each session, make sure you have a printout of the Druid in regular form and each wildshaped form available. I'd also strongly suggest notecards with stats for the animals the druid is likely to want to summon.

[Dr.Epic]

How do they want to build said druid? Do they want to be a fighter, offensive caster, healer, wildshape focused, what? Their are a dozen routes to go a PrC for each. Personally, I've always wanted to play a Blighter. Why? Because I have a vendetta against the Na'vi. I will destroy you Tree of Souls!

[Incanur]

Con is necessary rather than meaningless thanks to the errata. As everyone else is saying, a fifteenth-level druid just wins mechanically. Grab a few good items (easy and affordable with the MIC) and a few wilding clasps, then go nuts in whatever form you desire.

[Tvtyrant]

I forgot the errata for con; okay then your stats are Wisdom, Con, int, Char, dump~

Summons, animal companion stats, and spells should probably also be note carded for her. She has more options then GoD so you need to help her learn how to pick good ones quickly. Summons should be divided the same way I indicated with wildshape, with a summon for each role stated out. So if you need to grapple something you have crocs, etc.

For feats other then Natural Spell; I have read of Maximize working well with Call Lightning and then transforming into a tiny flying creature and avoiding getting hit. Works even better if she casts Control Weather and creates a rain storm first, because then her lightning is crazy strong. Also Extend is a must for self buffing for melee, and maybe Lion's Pounce or Eagle's Wings. Your going to want to take the Extra Wildshape feat if she uses those, but the Lion's Pounce gives you a full attack on a charge by spending a Wildshape use, and Eagle's Wings lets her grow wings and fly for an hour with a use (even in a wildshape form; hello flying T-rex!) Those last ones are from Complete Divine.

[Chilingsworth]

Thanks all! Fortunately, I should have some time to do this, looks like I'm gonna need it!

[Greenish]

Would letting her have Planar Shepard be acceptable? She doesn't know what she is doing yet, so it would be a crutch.If she can't make do with a druid, Planar Shepard isn't going to do anything, since it's mostly the same but better.

Besides, Eberron material is out of bounds.

[Incanur]

Remember to use spellstaff to get an extra high-level spell if the character has any downtime. And that storm elementals make excellent summons. With enhance wild shape, the treant makes for a respectable defensive form without the aesthetic and practical disadvantages of things like dinosaurs.

[Endarire]

Hi Welcome (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-MZDBXacWEIJ:brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php%3Ftopic%3D9724.0+Introducing+Hi+Welcome+ or+shoving+it+to+beatsticks+at+every+level.+site:b rilliantgameologists.com&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

[DungeonDelver]

Might I recommend the shapeshift alternate class feature from PHII? It IS the less powerful option, but it's also a lot less rules baggage than normal wildshape and far more newbie friendly. Even with losing natural spell (which the shapeshift option does), you get access to several powerful forms and the fun of changing shape without the baggage of managing separate builds.

[Emmerask]

I absolutely hate it when my new players want to be druids... and as of yet 3 out of 4 wanted to be one...

From a power perspective they are pretty good for noobs ie hard to mess up but be prepared for really looooong combat rounds!
It is in my opinion the most complicated class d&d has to offer, you play yourself + 1 to x characters at the same time during battle and the druid himself is ever changing and without decent preparation this alone will give you endless headaches "I want to become a cheetah... so what is the speed? ", "what does rake mean?" etc etc :smalltongue:

I would suggest anything else but a druid until the player has some pretty good rules understanding (and knows what to prepare to not slow combat), if it has to be a druid then I would suggest a variant from ua, limiting the options will save your hair :smallbiggrin:

[Incanur]

People who like fantasy often love animals and revere nature. I can understand the popularity. For whatever reason, though, I've only had one player pick the class in 3.5 and that was for arcane hierophant.

[Escheton]

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1354.0

Druid handbook link.

[dgnslyr]

...aesthetic and practical disadvantages of things like dinosaurs.

I see the words on my screen but I don't understand what they mean. Anybody want to help?

[Incanur]

I see the words on my screen but I don't understand what they mean. Anybody want to help?

This is why you should have put ranks into Decipher Script. Now the quoted text could be from an ancient Netherese tome for all you know. :smalltongue:

[Vladislav]

I second Telonius and DungeonDelver. Powerful as the standard Druid may be, it's not a good choice for a first time player (especially at level 15!). Too many things to track, too bogged down in numbers, too slow.

Hurray, you're very poweful, but you just took 25 minutes of crossreferencing 10 books to take a single turn, your head hurts, all the statistics of all your summoned monster mesh before your eyes into a mega-block, and you're bored like hell.

Unless your girlfriend is the rare kind of person who actually enjoys tracking large amounts of numbers while learning huge statblocks and spell lists by heart for the first time, you will do her a favor by talking her into another class, or at least the shapeshift alternative. At least for her first game.

[Incanur]

Depends on what kind of game it is. If it's some sort of hardcore dungeon crawl where every +1 counts every battle, maybe. If it's relaxed campaign more focused on social interactions, on the other hand, druid shouldn't be a problem. Ranger is a simpler option with similar flavor, but honestly equipment alone makes every fifteenth-level character incredibly complex if you optimize at all.

[DungeonDelver]

The shapeshift variant is much, much simpler to operate with and I still recommend it. Is equipment all that complex for druids? They don't need much of a weapon, they don't really need much in the way of armor. Get some protective items, something to bring your wisdom up, and Ta-da! all done.

[Incanur]

Is equipment all that complex for druids? They don't need much of a weapon, they don't really need much in the way of armor. Get some protective items, something to bring your wisdom up, and Ta-da! all done.

Sure, and you can also pick your spells in a flash if you merely memorize anything that catches your eye.

[DungeonDelver]

Well I was referring to equipment. Spells are an entirely different thing for druids. Druids have good spells, but the skill to preparing the good ones is learned through trial by error. It's all a matter of figuring out what you want your spells to be, and using them.

[Chilingsworth]

Depends on what kind of game it is. If it's some sort of hardcore dungeon crawl where every +1 counts every battle, maybe. If it's relaxed campaign more focused on social interactions, on the other hand, druid shouldn't be a problem. Ranger is a simpler option with similar flavor, but honestly equipment alone makes every fifteenth-level character incredibly complex if you optimize at all.

The campagin is Age of Worms. I'm really hoping she doesn't end up needing a back-up character, since she seems to have started getting comfortable with her combat medic and that character is proving useful.

[Incanur]

I guess the MIC wasn't listed as a source, which makes choosing items easier. Does that also prevent wilding clasps?

[Chilingsworth]

I guess the MIC wasn't listed as a source, which makes choosing items easier. Does that also prevent wilding clasps?

my bad, the MIC is definately allowed

[Incanur]

200,000 is a whole pile of money to spend with MIC allowed. I guess a monk's belt of Con +4 plus wilding clasp (35k) [throw in belt of battle for another 16K] and a periapt of Wis +6 with clasp (42k) [throw in ankh of ascension for another 9k] would be a decent start.

[Ungvar]

Assuming she's playing a 15th level cleric right now (combat medic), she should be getting used to the complexity of the game, particularly divine spell casting. So perhaps it's a good idea for her to begin familiarizing herself w/ the options for Druids in anticipation of playing one in the next campaign.

One druid prestige class to look at is Master of Many Forms from Complete Adventurer. It can be a bit heavy on bookkeeping, but the versatility it affords you is insanely fun.

At first level, you can become any humanoid race, elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs... great for infiltration! You also get "Shifter's Speech", which lets you talk normally while wildshaped in any form.

At second level you can become any giant race, which includes ogres and trolls, and you can become size large (faster than a straight druid).

You can look over the class for the rest of the benefits, but I'll note the biggest drawback is that you don't get spellcasting for any MoMF levels. As always, this means that a Druid 15 will be more powerful than a Druid 5/MoMF 10, but more powerful doesn't always mean more fun, and the MoMF build will still be able to be a strong contributor to the party.

[HunterOfJello]

The spontaneous caster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) druid variant from Unearthed Arcana might be a good idea for a new player.

I know the variant is good for new clerics, but haven't seen a spontaneous druid played before so other posters might have a better perspective on it.

Also, I would give Summon Nature's Ally X free with this variant (as suggested in a sidebar in UA, but not mentioned in the SRD).

[bokodasu]

Ok, this may be a little ridiculous, but this is what I did:

1) Found a csv copy of the SRD
2) Popped it into a database, yanked out all the animals
3) Printed out a report of all the animals, without the non-wildshape-applicable bits and with their druid-variable stats empty
4) Learned how to fill in those empty stats

Yes, it was about three hours of work and 9 printed pages, but now with 1 minute of work, I can wildshape my char into any available animal without slowing down the game, and I only have to track my charsheet, not how all my animal forms change every time I level up or buy a new piece of equipment or whatever.

Well, all right, it's utterly ridiculous and you totally don't have to do that, but it's also nice to be able to be really situational, even if I only use about six actual forms on a regular basis. I also printed out my spells, because I suck at remembering anything about any spell ever, and it's faster to look up if I only have the druid spells in front of me. I'm just saying, you CAN be almost completely inept and still play a druid efficiently, it just takes more work on the front end.

[Ungvar]

Not ridiculous at all! When I played my last druid, I did much the same thing using a spreadsheet. It helped a ton.

[Tvtyrant]

You guys know if you make an online spread sheet you can post in your sigs so other people can use it? Just food for thought :P

I want to know how the first session went honestly.