First time playing a druid

[ForzaFiori]

So, like the title says, I'm about to play my first druid in DnD. I was wondering what tips and tricks the playground have for playing druids. What wildshapes are the best, good spells to use, etc.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[WarKitty]

It's kind of hard to mess up a druid. For low levels, get hide armor and rely primarily on produce flame. Possibly combined with some buff spells for your companion and party members.

Once you get wildshape, well...think big predators. http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868802/Druid_Handbook_revived most of the good stuff is in there.

[Zaq]

Do your homework. Druids involve a lot of bookkeeping—you have to know what your spells do (and you have an entire library to choose from every day), you have to know what all your favorite summons do, you have to know what your stats for all your favorite wild shape forms are, you have to know what your animal companion can do, you have to know what you and your animal companion will be like when you apply your favorite buffs . . . and few things can bring the flow of the game to a grinding halt like an inexperienced and underprepared druid. Figure out what you're likely to be using before the game starts, and get all of it ready. No one wants to wait while you figure out just which book the Sailsnake is in and figure out its stats. They want you to have the stats on hand at a moment's notice.

So, pick three or four favorite wild shape forms and figure out what your stats and abilities will be in each of them. (Provide page numbers, but still write down the stats.) Pick three or four favorite summons and figure out what their stats are. If you're in favor of buffing, figure out how your buffs will change your abilities and those of your companion. Prepare as many spells as possible before the game starts, because no one wants to sit and wait for you to comb through PHB, PHB2, SpC, CS, CC, LoM, FB, SS, SW, and whatever else just to pick your spells for the day. If you can, set up a list of favorite spells that make up the core of your repertoire, then make a few lists for contingencies ("these are useful if we're going underground, these are useful if we know we're in hostile territory, these are useful if we know that we'll be dealing with water . . .") that you can easily swap in when needed. I like to put spells on index cards, but whatever works for you.

Now, of course, there are exceptions. Part of a druid's power comes from his or her versatility and ability to adapt to new situations. If you're suddenly in a situation where summoning a giant octopus would be, unquestionably, the absolute perfect thing that the party needs, then people will forgive you if you have to look it up. If you realize that you could wild shape into the one thing that can chase the escaping BBEG while allowing the party to come along, your party will probably be OK with you having to find it. However, these cases should be pretty rare (because you made sure that your list of preprepared forms covers most of your bases, right?) and definitely shouldn't happen every session or every in-game day.

One more thing to consider is how long your turns take even when you're being good and have all the stats you could ever need right at your fingertips. You will be responsible for a minimum of two combatants (you and your animal companion), and you can easily boost that number with trained animals, summoned creatures, and so on. You know how frustrating it is when someone takes five minutes to decide what they're going to do? Don't be that guy, and especially don't be that guy for each of the creatures under your control. Figure out what you're doing as far in advance as possible. Yes, I know, you have an entire spell list to choose from, you have to decide just what kind of shape you should be in, you have to keep track of the durations of all of those spells you cast, whatever. I know. It's still your job. If you tend to like the summoner archetype, consider talking to your friends and seeing if they want to help you out. I've found that it's often a good solution to give control of your summons to your partymates, so that they have more things to do and so that your turns take less time. Make sure they're OK with it ahead of time, naturally, but it's often a good compromise. In any case, do all you can to reduce the duration of your turns.

Am I making this sound like a lot of work? Well, it kind of is. Druids can be pretty party-unfriendly, and that's especially true if they're careless. Played well, they're unquestionably one of the strongest classes in the entire game . . . but that doesn't mean that they're fun to sit next to at the table. You can help avoid that, but it takes dedication. Make sure that you come prepared, make sure that you stay focused, and make sure that you remember that the rest of the group exists.

[ForzaFiori]

@Zaq: thankfully, some of the problems with being unfamiliar with the druid will be negated by playing in a PbP game. They are typically slower paced, which will be nice. Also, I'm limited to the SRD for the most part (gotta run anything else by the DM before using it), which will eliminate some bookkeeping as well. Even with that though, looking at that list of stuff makes me feel like I should have checked how deep the pool was before jumping in.

[Zaq]

If you're not sitting at the table, then yes, a lot of the pressure's off. There's still a lot to take care of, but at least you won't be holding other people up much if you have to spend 10 minutes finding the perfect wild shape. (You might still want to have some quick references for your own sanity, of course.)

[Togo]

Some basic points.

With the rules are written, you don't really need physical stats much once you get wild shape, so bump up your wisdom for spellcasting, your int for skills, and then follow however you see your character going.

Entangle is one of the best spells in the game. It's mainly used to slow down the creatures attacking, so the party can get some ranged attacks in, slow down some but not all attackers, so you split the attackers, or to stop people getting away. At low level, it can also immobalise attackers and end fights. Remember that the area of effect is clearly visible, and if you're indoors or underground or on stony ground or ice, it won't work.

You're not immune to your own entangle.

Lesser vigour heals more hp than cure light wounds, and is probably more useful. That said, if the party is relying on you for healing, they're going to be disappointed. Druids simply aren't that great at it. Get a couple of pearls of power, or a wand of cure light, or lesser vigour, and that's going to be about your limit as far as healing goes.

Fey fire is excellent, since it makes invisible characters detectable. Get a scroll early on if you can.

Briar web is not a good spell. It's written differently to entangle and the differences are not to your benefit.

Your animal companion is likely to be better than most of the party at killing stuff. More vulnerable, more stupid, hard to transport, but certainly effective. Wolves, apes and bears are your best choices, although if you can get away with a crocadile, consider it.

Low level summon spells aren't that useful.

Don't plan to get magical combat equipment. You can't use it in wildshape (unless you DM is very generous), and if you're not in wildshape you're generally better off casting spells.

Get the feat Natural Spell. It allows you to cast while in wildshape, which in turn means that you don't have to change back from wild shape form so often, which means you can keep the wildshape form for a good proportion of the day.

At very low level, once you're out of spells, you may well suck. Your animal companion will help out, but it may be the best you can do is get a longspear or similar and aid another in combat. Once you get a level or two, this problem will disappear. You'll have good buff spells like bull's strength, and handy combat spells like flaming sphere. Once you hit 5th, it will vanish. At that point you can wildshape into a useful combat form, cast 3rd level spells, and upgrade your animal to an ape that can rip people apart.

Greater magic fang is a very useful all-day buff to cast on yourself, to hit creatures that can only be hit by magic weapons.

Considering maxing out spot, It's a class skill for you, which means with a high wisdom, you're likely to be the best in the party. This becomes doubly true if you have access to sourcebooks, several of which have druid spells which grant competance bonuses to spot, and thus all of which stack with eachother. Heal is also handy, as are listen, swim, and diplomacy. Heal and listen are useful for use with listening lorecall and healing lorecall (both druid 2) alone. Knowledge nature is unlikely to be useful unless you want to predict the weather, since almost all natural creatures are instantly recognisable anyway. Handle animal isn't particularly useful, even though you'd think it would be.

Goodberry deserves special mention as a spell to cast while travelling, or not expecting trouble. A somewhat blah spell at low level, at high level, most of the party casters will have pearls of power they hav'nt used by the end of the day. Borrow them all, cast goodberry several times, and you have a huge pile of berries that will stay enchanted for several days, which you can hand over to the various party members so they can do their own healing. It's a bit like giving everyone in the party a wand of cure minor. A week of travelling to the adventure site can easily leave you with 60-70 berries, or enough for everyone in the party to have 8, and enough left over to feed and heal any NPCs you might come across.

Work out the stats for your favourite wildshape forms in advance. Same with your favourite summoned monsters, and your animal companion. Druids are complicated, but it's worth the effort.

[Eldariel]

Druid basics:

Wisdom and Constitution are your most important stats. Dex helps early; later Wildshape replaces that. Mentals are both handy and Strength is...rarely relevant. Only Wisdom and Constitution are absolutely crucial, though.


Animal Companion can almost be a tank. Don't forget you can buy Barding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#bardingMediumCreatureandLarge Creature) Armor for it and War-Trained Animals (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#animalType) are proficient in armor. Others can use Mithril Shirt Barding or Mw. Studded Leather Barding without penalty. Some notable strong companion options from Core:
- Riding Dog (War-Trained in particular)
- Wolf
- Crocodile
- Dire Bat
- Brown Bear
- Tiger
- Dire Lion
- Dire Bear
- Dire Tiger
- Tyrannosaur

Also note that you can trade for a higher level option as you level, should you so desire. They also improve as you level, which among other things gains them bonus feats, which can be convenient. Purchased Psychic Reformation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicReformation.htm) could also be used to switch the feats they already know to something more useful (the default feats tend to be rather meh) and you can always query the DM about the option.


Some solid Core Wildshape Forms, roughly by level:
- Leopard
- Deinonychus (Dinosaur)
- Crocodile
- Dire Bat
- Polar Bear (or Brown)
- Giant Crocodile
- Dire Wolf
- Ape/Dire Ape (do note the advantages of being a primate; item use and all that - number-wise, quadropeds win)
- Rhinoceros
- Megaraptor (Dinosaur)
- Dire Lion
- Tiger
- Dire Bear
- Dire Tiger
- Tyrannosaur (Dinosaur)

Obviously different movement modes are also useful but you don't need me to list you eagles and dire badgers and all that; you already know such. It's worth noting that once you gain Plant Shapes, your combat form list expands tremendously; Plants tend to be hard-hitting and durable. Treant & Tendriculous are few notable Plant-forms.

Elementals are, of course, very useful for their special movement modes and such but not all that good in combat. Generally Earth and Fire Elementals hit the hardest while Air mostly relies on Whirlwind to be useful in combat and Water...is a decent all-rounder but has obvious advantages in aquatic terrain.


Few solid Summons to note (you get 'em spontaneously):
- Wolves
- Dire Wolves (+ Animal Growth = :smallbiggrin:)
- Thoqqua
- Brown Bear
- Satyr
- Unicorn
- Janni
- Pixie (with and without Otto's); SLAs in general are v. good
- Large+ Elementals
- Tojanida
- Nixie
- Djinn

In general, you should be interested in things with spell-likes (Unicorn is a superb healbot that doesn't waste your actions while also protecting people, Pixie has Irresistible Dance which you can't normally cast, et cetera) or straight-up hard-hitting things in inconvenient positions for the opposition (Charge-ready Rhinoceroses, Bears in Grappling Position against the squishies, et cetera).


Finally, spells:
- You'll want control magic. Entangle, Soften Earth and Stone, Sleet Storm, Ice Storm, Wall of Thorns, Wall of Stone, Antilife Shell and company present a series of great ways to control opposition and their options.

- You'll want buff magic. Barkskin, Greater Magic Fang, Animal Growth, Air Walk, Freedom of Movement, Death Ward, Bull's Strength-line and company present fine buffs for friends, animal companion and yourself alike. Note the long durations on many of them; these can be in place well before encounters. At the very end of the path you have the glorious Shapechange which does everything.

- You'll want utility magic. Notably, Druids have access to Scrying-line of spells, things like Stonetell, Find the Path and company, and ways to communicate with the nature. That's all good, especially if you also have used Wild Empathy and Handle Animal to have some animal friends in the wilderness acting as your eyes, and even helping out in combat as necessary. Oh, and Dispel Magic-line, obviously. When magic is the strongest tool in the game, there's something to be said about being able to remove Magic. Wind Walk isn't quite Teleport but if you lack a Wizard, it'll be a passable replacement.

- You have Lesser Restoration, Heal and there's Cure Light Wounds on your class spell list so you can use Wands of Cure Light Wounds to heal the party. This much is obvious. Unicorns from SNAIV (or multiples from higher level slots) really help with in-combat healing.

- Giant Vermin and Control Winds are just brutal spells, period. Something to keep in mind. Also, your combat magic is quite economic, giving you rather large amounts of punch for little investment. They need high caster level to be efficient so Beads of Karma from Strand of Prayer Beads would be most interesting for you.


Some Magic Items to keep an eye out for:
- Any Armor or Shield with the "Wild"-property.
- Dragonhide Fullplate (not strictly magical, but a very good piece of armor for you; Wild one is the ideal midgame armor)
- Ioun Stones (particularly Caster Level Bonus; stat bonuses are also nice)
- Strand of Prayer Beads
- Metamagic Rods, particularly of Extend


Feats of interest:
- Natural Spell
- Combat feats like Improved Trip, Power Attack, Multiattack and company.
- Augment Summoning
- Extend Spell and Quicken Spell
- Spell Penetration and Greater
- Craft Wondrous Items & Craft Magic Arms & Armor; Craft Rods and Craft Wands are interesting if the world literally has no magic items for sale at all.


Skills of interest:
- Concentration
- Knowledge: Nature
- Handle Animal

Max those (or get at least +10 Handle Animal with your Animal Companion to train DC 20 things for it by taking 10).

- Spellcraft (max if the party lacks other casters)
- Spot
- Listen (if you have points, max 'em; you're the best of all classes at Spot & Listen)
- Tumble (cross-class but good)
- Balance (5 ranks stops some annoying issues; again cross-class tho)
- Hide (with some forms granting bonus to hiding in some terrain, this can be useful)
- Diplomacy (if nobody else is taking it or if you feel you need to be a face)

And that's about what I'd consider off-hand. Survival is good but you generally get enough of it from just your Wisdom so no need to invest heavily in it.

[ForzaFiori]

Where can I find the rules on training animals? I can remember seeing them before, but not where.

[Endarire]

3.5: The Druid Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1354.0)

3.5: The Handle Animal Guide (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871522/The_Handle_Animal_Guide)

[Defiant]

Can I just say, I love this forum? All these in-depth responses to help another player - pure awesome! :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

Where can I find the rules on training animals? I can remember seeing them before, but not where.

Handle Animal-skill description should have everything you need.