Help with gestalt druid build.

[Venardhi]

The character concept is essentially a 'wrath of nature' grumpy ol' hermit sort. He joins up with some unseemly hooligans for mutual benefit but sees them as selfish and petty children with all their treasure-hunting and murdering for personal gain. He goes out of his way to destroy those who destroy even a bit of nature without giving back to it, but is otherwise 'good' if very surly and unfriendly. He would spend as much time as he can in animal forms, due to his affinity for nature and his eternal anger towards his civilized roots.

Normally I would just start him as a druid and see what happens, but this new campaign is starting us at 17th level, gestalted, with LA/RC only applying to one side. Granted so many options, I now can't quite decide what to do with him.

I'm pretty sure I want to just go straight druid on one side or possibly do Master of Many Forms, with the other side a mixture of PrCs and possibly some racial classes thrown on. Master of Many Forms, Warshaper, Nature's Warrior, etc. Possibly a few levels of ranger?

I'm also strongly considering the vow of poverty, which my DM has said is okay for me to 're-flavor' to be more in line with the character's devotion to nature rather than to strict goodness. (He doesn't own things because nothing can be owned, the ore used to make a sword belongs to the mountain it came from, hippy happy bull like that)

So basically I'm wondering if you folks have suggestions on the best combinations from the various things I'm considering. Especially racial/template suggestions that would fit him. I'd really like something half-satyr/dryad/fay/whatever or at least something that gives me an excuse to give him bestial features like ram horns, a lion's mane and claws or whatnot. The Half-fay template isn't quite satisfying, especially with the butterfly wings.

Teach me oh experienced ones. Show me the way of druidbuilding. I'm not necessarily interested in the most powerful build, moreso one that is fun to play, suits the concept and isn't wasting levels in things that won't help any.

Thanks!

[Venardhi]

Oh, and I can use anything from any book except psionics.

[Devmaar]

For a start, if you have straight Druid on one side, you don't really need to worry about power. You are a Druid.

Anyway, you can't beat a Barbarian for wrath!

You already mentioned Warshaper.

For a race, Shifter might be appropriate.


EDIT: I forgot Totemist! What about Druid//Barbarian/Totemist/Totem Ranger

[Venardhi]

Would I be able to be a Totemist if I took vow of poverty? Do the soulmeld thingies count as possessions? I'm not overly familiar with the class.

[Swok]

Soulmelds are not magic items or possessions. Incarnum blends well with VoP and makes up for some of it's shortcomings.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

17th level gestalt, eh? Here's how I'd go about it:

Druid 17, accept no less.

If you want to use animal forms, don't worry about Master of Many Forms. If you want to take Frozen Wild Shape and go around as a Cryohydra, then take MoMF 7. If you want to go around as a War Troll with a two-handed weapon, then take MoMF 7. Ideally, you want the Armor/Ring/Mantle of the Beast from Complete Champion, and go around in the form of a Dire Polar Bear from Frostburn.

Buffs are good, DMM: Persistent Bite of the Weretiger is better, DMM: Persistent Stormrage is downright awesome. Definitely get a level of Cleric for no reason but to gain Turn Undead. Cloistered Cleric would be best, take Knowledge Devotion, along with the Celerity and Planning domains. You'll probably want to go Human because you'll end up needing a lot of feats.

If you want to actually use Turn Undead against the undead, and no reason not to, then put some Unguent of Timelessness on some Bone Talisman (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) spell foci so it will last 365 times longer than normal (about 43 days at level 17), and you can Turn Undead as a Cleric equal to your level. If you get five Unguent of Timelessness and prepare 40 spell foci and prepare and cast Bone Talisman once per day, you should have a constant pool of 40 such uses. This costs you a one-time investment of 1250 gp and one 2nd level spell slot per day, to get a full Turn Undead progression. If you use a Bead of Karma before buffing then you'll be turning as a 21st level Cleric.

Spending so much time in animal form, you'll want Warshaper levels. Definitely get at least three, but even all five would be useful.

Your animal companion is probably going to be just as strong as the weakest character in the party. Get Companion Spellbond and share your persistent buffs with it, just make sure it never gets out of the 30 ft. range. Take Natural Bond and get a 'level -3' companion and you'll still get to count your full level. Take one level of Beastmaster to get +3 to your Druid level for its benefits, and since you can add your own bonuses and penalties in the most beneficial order you'll count as a 20th level Druid for its benefits. Note the epic animal companion progression (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/classProgressions.htm#epicDruid). There are two routes to go from here: Exalted Companion feat to get a Celestial version, and your animal companion takes Vow of Poverty. Extremely overpowered, but its creature type changes to Magical Best, and if it has poison (Fleshraker) it can't take exalted feats. Otherwise, take Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) and even though the two abilities are tracked separately, it doesn't say anywhere that the same creature can't benefit from both. That will give it yet more hit dice and bonuses to its ability scores and natural armor. Due to the wording of Wild Cohort I believe a 'level -3' animal companion would be treated as a 'level -6' wild cohort, and neither Natural Bond nor Beastmaster would be added to that. It's still quite a few extra HD and other benefits, so still worth taking. Regardless, it should have enough cross-class ranks in Spellcraft to take the Mage Slayer line of feats in CA. You can also give it the Warbeast template in MM2 via Handle Animal. The strongest choices are a Fleshraker dinosaur (MM3), Dire Eagle (RoS), and Magebred Ghost Tiger (FN). With a Fleshraker you can cast Venomfire (SK) on it every day and it will get +CLd6 Acid damage on three of its five attacks.

I'd go with an Elf race, preferably Wild Elf for no Con penalty, to take one level in Seeker of the Misty Isle to get the Travel domain's spells added to your Druid list. Note that you may have to take this before your Cleric level, otherwise it would automatically be added as a Cleric domain and be of little benefit. You could also use Half-Elf to qualify and to pick up Half-Elf Paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#halfElfParagon) 1 for a bonus feat, possibly taking the other two levels of that later for a +2 Wis. You could then take Human Paragon for yet another bonus feat and yet another +2 Wis.

Take Swordsage 2+, to get your Wisdom bonus to AC and some nice maneuvers and stances. Some Warblade would also be good just to pick up Iron Heart Surge and probably Wall of Blades as well. Action Before Thought is highly recommended. A single level of the Wild Shape Ranger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) variant gets you Fast Movement at 1st level, as well as Track and Ranger skill points. I'd start out WS Ranger 1/ Half-Elf Paragon 1/ Swordsage 2/ Warblade 2/ Seeker of the Misty Isle 1/ Cloistered Cleric 1/ Beastmaster 1/ Warshaper 3/ Half-Elf Paragon 2/ Human Paragon 3. Future levels should be a few more Swordsage and Warblade to get additional higher level maneuvers, and/or more Warshaper, along side of Druid all the way.

You're going to need Companion Spellbond, Natural Bond, Skill Focus: Handle Animal, Wild Cohort or Exalted Companion, Natural Spell, Persistent Spell, and DMM: Persistent. You'll have Extend Spell via the Planning domain, Weapon Focus: Claw via Swordsage, you'll have six feats for levels, and two bonus feats from the racial paragon classes, which leaves one open feat still! You'll have Power Attack via Bite of the Weretiger, so maybe Multiattack or Quicken Spell or Combat Reflexes.

Items should include the Armor/Mantle/Ring of the Beast in CC, probably a standard Strand of Prayer Beads which has had the Bead of Smiting removed (costs 9,000 gp total as per DMG), some Lesser Rods of Extend for buffs like Longstrider and Greater Magic Fang, a standard Rod of Empower for casting Fire Seeds, five Unguent of Timelessness, a pile of Night Sticks, possibly a Rod of Defiance, a pile of Wilding Clasps, Circlet of Rapid Casting with +Wisdom, and a standard Rod of Extend with a 6th level Pearl of Power. Every other day use the Rod of Extend to cast Energy Immunity twice and Superior Resistance once, using the pearl to recover an Energy Immunity. Each will last 48 hours, so on the days in between use the rod and pearl to cast Energy Immunity three times. That gives you constant immunity to all five energy types and a +6 Resistance bonus to saving throws, for two 6th level spell slots every day and the cost of those two items.

This character will be extremely powerful, and his animal companion will destroy anything it attacks. Try to hold back if the party isn't up to this level of optimization.

[Venardhi]

That is one big wall of helpful text there.

They certainly won't be optimized to that level, but I did find a few useful bits in there. I remember thinking about adding swordsage for a reason but it drifted out of my character concept at some point. I wanted to limit him to classes he could essentially be teaching himself/gaining through relevant experience or from short companionships in the wild. I might be able to give him the swordsage levels from a time before he 'went wild' though.

Many thanks sir. And anyone else, please throw in your two cents worth.

Edit: It occurs to me that if I take cleric on the other side of the gestalt, I could actually take advantage of the +level of spellcasting of existing divine magic class that comes with some of these PrCs. Handy that.

[dspeyer]

Swordsage doesn't have to be civilized. Most of Tiger Claw is loosely based on animals. You can say you learned it from (watching) those various animals.

[Venardhi]

Well what Im leaning towards now takes up all my levels, so I'll have to figure something out to take out if I want to add in Swordsage levels.

Current thoughts:

Human, with Vow of Poverty.
Druid 17//Cleric 1/Beastmaster 1/MoMF 7/Warshaper 3/Nature's Warrior 5

I could always trade a few levels of druid in for something, but I was trying to keep that side clean. I could move Nature's Warrior over to the druid side which would make me effectively a level 14 druid on that side, plus the nature's warrior benefits and I could drop Cleric, freeing up 6 levels on the messy side of the gestalt which I could use to finish out Warshaper and MoMF or add Swordsage 2 and still have a few to spare.

So many damn options. I might have to design a base class that combines all these wild shape-oriented PrCs together into an easier package for future use.

[Venardhi]

Looking at what a druid gets from levels 16-20 I'm thinking I might just skip it over in favor of something else. Elemental forms don't really interest me, are the spells alone worth it? Mind you I can use prestige classes to add a few casting levels at the very least.

[Devmaar]

Looking at what a druid gets from levels 16-20 I'm thinking I might just skip it over in favor of something else. Elemental forms don't really interest me, are the spells alone worth it? Mind you I can use prestige classes to add a few casting levels at the very least.

Purely in terms of power, spells are always worth it. Especially 9th level spells, which here you'll only get with full caster levels.

[dspeyer]

How are you starting MoMF at level 3? You don't have wild shape yet.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Well what Im leaning towards now takes up all my levels, so I'll have to figure something out to take out if I want to add in Swordsage levels.

Current thoughts:

Human, with Vow of Poverty.
Druid 17//Cleric 1/Beastmaster 1/MoMF 7/Warshaper 3/Nature's Warrior 5

You don't qualify for most of those prestige classes at the levels you've taken them. Beastmaster requires 8 ranks in a skill, so minimum [classes] 5/ Beastmaster 1. MoMF requires Wild Shape prior to entering it, so it has to wait until after Druid 5. You could get around that by making your character a Divine Minion (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a), so you'll get Wild Shape at level 1. A Human Divine Minion can get Alertness and Endurance at Druid 1// LA +1, and go Druid// MoMF after that.

Note that Divine Minion sets your alignment to that of your deity, and a Druid must be at least partially neutral aligned. Anhur and Nephthys are both CG, so they're out. Hathor and Isis are NG, Sebek is NE, and Thoth is N, so pick one for whichever alignment would be most suitable and rely on Druid and MoMF to expand your Wild Shape choices. This is bound to change your character background considerably, since you would be native to your deity's home plane rather than the material plane.

You could keep the same build that way, just put MoMF before Beastmaster and drop two Nature's Warrior levels for the +1 LA and a fourth in Warshaper. Also note that your racial 11th level Wild Shape would stack with your seventeen Druid levels, so you would be treated as level 28 for duration and max HD of your forms. You could turn into a Geriviar (MM3), or a Legendary Tiger (MM2), for example.

Elemental Wild Shape is actually pretty amazing. You would gain an Air Elemental's Whirlwind, an Earth Elemental's Earth Glide, or a Water Elemental's Drench. In the epic levels you can get Improved Elemental Wild Shape to take the form of anything with the Elemental creature type that falls within the size and HD limitations. At the end of each day, take the form of an Immoth (MM2), and use its Ice Runes ability to turn all of your remaining spells for the day into ice runes, which are permanent until used and require only a free action to release the frozen spell within.

[Venardhi]

Druids get a 9th level at 17, No?

Add my wisdom bonus spells and with a couple prc levels with +spellcaster level and I would have at least a few at my disposal by 20.

Edit: or put the two even levels of natures warrior on the druid side and still get elemental form and be casting as if that side were pure druid

Though it is just now occuring to me that all those prcs in the nondruid side require several levels before I can start them so ill probably need to muck around a bit an take some more base class levels.

Edit: this is why we refresh before we reply.

Thanks for the tips.

[Venardhi]

Okay, I think I'm officially settled on a build now, and this one actually works (I think). DM okayed the two levels of PrC on both sides on the terms that I go all the way in them.

01 Druid // - - - - - - - - -
02 Druid // - - - - - - - - -
03 Druid // Template: Nature's Thrall (Homebrew)
04 Druid // Template: Feral
05 Druid // Beastmaster
06 Druid // Master of Many Forms
07 Druid // Master of Many Forms
08 Druid // Master of Many Forms
09 Druid // Master of Many Forms
10 Druid // Master of Many Forms
11 Druid // Master of Many Forms
12 Druid // Master of Many Forms
13 Druid // Warshaper
14 Druid // Nature's Warrior
15 Nature's Warrior // Warshaper
16 Druid // Nature's Warrior
17 Nature's Warrior // Warshaper
(And planned for future)
18 Druid // Nature's Warrior
19 Druid // Warshaper
20 Druid // Warshaper

End result is full HD Druid casting + Wild Shape benefits out the wazoo. Taking Vow of Poverty to give him some extra crazy-hermit cred and because It sounds interesting from an RP perspective.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Taking Vow of Poverty to give him some extra crazy-hermit cred and because It sounds interesting from an RP perspective.

In that case, take Exalted Companion to give it the celestial creature template, so it too is good aligned, and have it take VoP as well. The higher level you get, the worse VoP is, but you should still be strong enough despite that. If you get VoP late enough (there's no reason not to wait quite a few levels to pick it up) you can spend your lower-level WBL on +Wis and +Con tomes and Unguent of Timelessness. A Bone Talisman spell foci which already has Unguent of Timelessness on it has no value so it doesn't violate your vow, and you'll get a turn undead ability equal to your character level.

[Frog Dragon]

In that case, take Exalted Companion to give it the celestial creature template, so it too is good aligned, and have it take VoP as well. The higher level you get, the worse VoP is, but you should still be strong enough despite that. If you get VoP late enough (there's no reason not to wait quite a few levels to pick it up) you can spend your lower-level WBL on +Wis and +Con tomes and Unguent of Timelessness. A Bone Talisman spell foci which already has Unguent of Timelessness on it has no value so it doesn't violate your vow, and you'll get a turn undead ability equal to your character level.
Actually, there is, because some of the benefits of VoP scale from the level you take it at, not your character level.

[Utopia724]

Not sure if this thread is aware but gestalt rules doesn't allow gestalting a PrC with another class, PrC, base or otherwise. Sad to say, but unless your DM/GM is allowing it, none of the above builds are viable in the slightest.

[Goaty14]

Not sure if this thread is aware but gestalt rules doesn't allow gestalting a PrC with another class, PrC, base or otherwise. Sad to say, but unless your DM/GM is allowing it, none of the above builds are viable in the slightest.

shhhhhh the DM doesn't have to know. The DM okayed the 2 levels of PrC on both sides, which means he already looked at it.\

For the MoMF part of your build, you should look at The Master of Many Forms Bible (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472737-Updated-Master-of-Many-Forms-Bible-official-wild-shape-rules-(recovered)), and there is also a feat in Savage Species called "Assume Supernatural Ability" which is what it sounds like (except it only works on a single ability) and to use it in combat dictates a DC 19 Will save (but that shouldn't be a problem due to a high Wis and Druid)

[eggynack]

Actually, there is, because some of the benefits of VoP scale from the level you take it at, not your character level.
Just the bonus feats, I think, which is important, but not the end all and be all. Druids have access to more useful exalted feats than most, but even they tend to have more bonus feats than there are useful exalted feats.

Not sure if this thread is aware but gestalt rules doesn't allow gestalting a PrC with another class, PrC, base or otherwise. Sad to say, but unless your DM/GM is allowing it, none of the above builds are viable in the slightest.
Pretty sure that's not true. You can't have a PrC on both sides, and theurge type PrC's aren't allowed, but prestige classes are legal.

Anyways, I have a handbook in my sig with druid stuff. Could be useful.

[stanprollyright]

Druid 17 or Druid/Planar Shepard on one side // Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian/Fighter/MoMF/Warshaper/Nature Warrior on the other.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: This thread is a little bit beyond the thread necromancy cutoff.