[3.5] 5th Druid / 5th Sorcerer build options

[Vallan3e]

I’m starting a campaign where we have been assigned a 10th lvl multi-class character. I’ll be playing a human 5 Druid/5 Sorcerer. I’m thinking the next 10 levels in Arcane Hierophant would be appropriate. [Stats: S13 D11 C14 I12 W18 C16 @lvl 10.]
I consider the druid the primary class, but there are SO many options for the druid (summoner, attack, buffer, healer, etc) I’d like some feedback on what path would be best. I only have 5 feats to begin, so how you play the character will impact those feat choices.
Practiced Spellcaster looks good, but I’d have to take it twice to cover both classes. Versitile Spellcaster could be helpful since I’d have so many spells and Natural Spell looks like a must have. I hate getting into a character class you aren't familiar with then regretting all those choices you made. Thoughts?

{core, faerun books fine, no grayhawk, dragon mag, eberron)

[gbprime]

Druid 5 / Sorcerer 5 is about the weakest way you can enter Arcane Hierophant. You're down 5 caster levels in both classes.

A stronger method is to take Versatile Spellcaster or Precocious Apprentice and using THAT to get your 2nd level arcane spells. That way you can enter the class with either [Druid 4 / Sorcerer 2] or [Druid 6 / Sorcerer 1].

With the latter option, at 10th level you'll have 9 levels of Druid stuff and 4 levels of sorcerer stuff. You'll top Arcane Heirophant out at 17th level when you're effectively [Druid 16 / Sorcerer 11] and you could take Mystic Theurge from there or just Druid.

...

And yes, Natural Spell is a must unless you opt for the no-wildshape-druid from Unearthed Arcana. Other powerful druid choices include Augmented Summoning (PHB) and Spontaneous Healing (CD). If you go either of these routes, that's more reason to max out your druid level over your sorcerer level.

[Vallan3e]

I wish I could change the build, but I'm stuck with the 5 druid/5 sorc and looking for a way to make the best of my situation.

[Keld Denar]

You've pretty much got the biggies. Practiced Spellcaster x2 + Versatile Spellcaster + Natural Spell + Natural Bond should be like, 5/8 of your feats. Other good options might be SF: Conjouration + Augmented Summons + Imbued Summoning to drop prehasted summons into combat, or something.

Get some low level MM Rods like Extend and possibly Chain and/or Empower. You'll get some mileage out of them.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

See if you can start out with a different mix of levels. Druid 4/ Sorcerer 4/ Arcane Heirophant 2 would be preferable to what you've got. Both in character and out of character, there's absolutely no reason you would take the fifth level in either of those classes (or continue studying a narrow skill set that much longer) when you could go 4/4/2. I would even go so far as to start out at 8th level at 4/4 to begin taking Arcane Heirophant at 9th, considering you'd get more XP per encounter anyway and eventually catch up.

Note that Versatile Spellcaster allows you to cast any spell you know of a given level, which would include spending Sorcerer spell slots to cast spells from the Druid list.

Definitely get Greenbound Summoning from Lost Empires of Faerun, and get a Ring of the Beast from Complete Champion. You can cast Summon Nature's Ally 1 for a Greenbound Dire Bat, which can use its Wall of Thorns spell-like ability and then spam Entangle or make melee attacks for the rest of its duration.

[gbprime]

WEll you need Druid 5 to get Wild Shape so you can advance it. But otherwise, yeah.

Didn't realize you were stuck with exactly Druid 5 / Sorcerer 5. My condolences. :smallcool:

[Gnaeus]

WEll you need Druid 5 to get Wild Shape so you can advance it. But otherwise, yeah.

As I recall that is debatable. RAW, you're probably right, but I think the example AH had only 4 druid levels & wild shape. Not that WoTC would ever make an illegal example character, but it gives ground to argue that Druid4/Wiz3/AH 3 can wildshape.

[gbprime]

As I recall that is debatable. RAW, you're probably right, but I think the example AH had only 4 druid levels & wild shape. Not that WoTC would ever make an illegal example character, but it gives ground to argue that Druid4/Wiz3/AH 3 can wildshape.

Yeah, and Rainbow Servant is 6/10 casting. :smalltongue:

But I hear ya.

[Flickerdart]

Are those stats without the racial adjustments and the 4th and 8th level boosts? It could be worth leveraging your CHA a bit for the DCs, since Sorcerer tends to have better attack spells and Druid better buffs. Then again, the Druid side could use the bonus spells more. Also taking a race that dumps your STR and DEX in exchange for CON or mental boosts would be very worthwhile.

[gbprime]

Are those stats without the racial adjustments and the 4th and 8th level boosts? It could be worth leveraging your CHA a bit for the DCs, since Sorcerer tends to have better attack spells and Druid better buffs. Then again, the Druid side could use the bonus spells more.

If Dragonlance books were available, you could partly solve this by taking Dynamic Priest, which would hook your druid spells to CHA instead. (They'd still use WIS for saving throws, but if you're a summoner that's not much of an issue.)

[Vallan3e]

See if you can start out with a different mix of levels. Druid 4/ Sorcerer 4/ Arcane Heirophant 2 would be preferable to what you've got. Both in character and out of character, there's absolutely no reason you would take the fifth level in either of those classes (or continue studying a narrow skill set that much longer) when you could go 4/4/2. I would even go so far as to start out at 8th level at 4/4 to begin taking Arcane Heirophant at 9th, considering you'd get more XP per encounter anyway and eventually catch up.

Doubt I'd be allowed to go 4/4/2 but I like your argument for 4/4 and catching up! Also appreciate the feat tips!


Are those stats without the racial adjustments and the 4th and 8th level boosts?
All level boosted stats applied and as for race but I will get a WIS boosting item (prob +2 or +3), we're told we'll all be human


If Dragonlance books were available,
No dragonlance available

Thanks for some good input all!

[Cog]

Out of curiosity, what are the class combos given to the other players?

[Flickerdart]

+2? Are you kidding? 10th level WBL should let you comfortably own a +4 item at the least (which is less than a third of your WBL).

[Vallan3e]

Out of curiosity, what are the class combos given to the other players?
All 5/5 Wiz/Cleric, Pal/Cleric, Pal/Fig, Druid/Sorc (me) Primary class listed 1st.

DM has allowed the Pal class to multi by burning a feat. We've been playing a group to epic lvls over the past many many years. This will force a more cooperative group dynamic than the "everyone has a role and we're great at what we do". Should be interesting. I expect after a few levels it will become necessary to have a cleric class join the group.



+2? Are you kidding? 10th level WBL should let you comfortably own a +4 item at the least (which is less than a third of your WBL). We can spend 25K gpv and we'll get some other goodies when we start so it won't be unreasonable. Just have to wait for the storyline to begin to get the rest of the goodies :)

[Flickerdart]

WBL for 10th is 49k. Hopefully your "goodies" are worth half WBL.

[nedz]

I fell sorry for the poor guy who has to play the Pal 5/F 5. F5 for heavens sake.

[Cog]

DM has allowed the Pal class to multi by burning a feat.
So not only does he get that build handed to him, he has to pay a feat for the privilege?

It sounds like you're still expecting to have fun. You know the group; what sound like warning signs might not be such after all, and you'd know better than us. So, um, good luck?

[Flickerdart]

I fell sorry for the poor guy who has to play the Pal 5/F 5. F5 for heavens sake.
Taking F6 for the second Dungeoncrasher and the Paladin ACF for Charging Smite could make that build a pretty decent charger. Then F9 gives Imperious Command, which is pretty neat - charge into a group of enemies, run one into a wall, wail on his face and your enemies flee in terror.

[Keld Denar]

Not to mention the Awesome Smite tactical feat, which can also set up a Domino Rush with Shocktrooper.

There is potential there. Not a lot of potential, but enough to cling to.

[faceroll]

This thread brings up a tangential question I've had for a long time- how much caster is too much caster?

The playground has this all-or-nothing approach to caster builds, but also a raging boner for any magic at all, so it would seem that fighter20 is inferior to fighter19/caster1.

Am I wrong on this? Is there any point where you would want fewer caster levels rather than more?

Sorc5/Druid5 isn't that bad if you realize that a 13th level wizard can provide a very hard challenge for a 20th level fighter. You've still got winners like entangle, glitterdust, web, ray of stupidity, salt ray, and grease, and whatever other spells are totally sweet in that level range. With natural bond, your animal companion won't be awful, and with that party composition, battlefield control should actually work out really well.

[Goonthegoof]

Ok, I have a solution. Find something that drains levels and get yourself smacked by it until you're level 5 (either druid or sorcerer, depending on which came first). You'll be a bit weaker temporarily but you'll gain more xp/take less xp to level, so you'll catch up quick. If the first 5 levels were druid just keep going with it, if they were sorcerer go into incantatrix or something fun.

Also swap your dex and str, there's no reason to have higher str than dex.

[faceroll]

Ok, I have a solution. Find something that drains levels and get yourself smacked by it until you're level 5 (either druid or sorcerer, depending on which came first). You'll be a bit weaker temporarily but you'll gain more xp/take less xp to level, so you'll catch up quick. If the first 5 levels were druid just keep going with it, if they were sorcerer go into incantatrix or something fun.

Also swap your dex and str, there's no reason to have higher str than dex.

I suggest you ignore this advice. Or find a different game if you don't like the premise of this one.

But it seems like you, OP, are ok with how things are going, so you probably don't want to be a doucher and go incantatrix in a party with a paladin5/fighter5.

[Tvtyrant]

This thread brings up a tangential question I've had for a long time- how much caster is too much caster?

The playground has this all-or-nothing approach to caster builds, but also a raging boner for any magic at all, so it would seem that fighter20 is inferior to fighter19/caster1.

Am I wrong on this? Is there any point where you would want fewer caster levels rather than more?

Sorc5/Druid5 isn't that bad if you realize that a 13th level wizard can provide a very hard challenge for a 20th level fighter. You've still got winners like entangle, glitterdust, web, ray of stupidity, salt ray, and grease, and whatever other spells are totally sweet in that level range. With natural bond, your animal companion won't be awful, and with that party composition, battlefield control should actually work out really well.

I think the real issue is that you lose enough CLs that your DCs are cruddy and everything is going to make them. Touch attack spells don't care but the chances of Glitterdust blinding someone is rather low. On the other hand there are a great many spells that don't need high DCs to be useful, such as the orb spells or divination spells.

[Goonthegoof]

I suggest you ignore this advice. Or find a different game if you don't like the premise of this one.

But it seems like you, OP, are ok with how things are going, so you probably don't want to be a doucher and go incantatrix in a party with a paladin5/fighter5.

Ok, so maybe incatatrix is a bit over the top. But still there's no reason to go 5/5 of two completely different classes, draining one off and replacing it with the other is a pretty good solution.

[lesser_minion]

Ok, so maybe incatatrix is a bit over the top. But still there's no reason to go 5/5 of two completely different classes, draining one off and replacing it with the other is a pretty good solution.

If you don't like the premise of a game, feel free to discuss your concerns with your DM. Or to leave.

Joining a game and then deliberately working against its premise, however, is not acceptable behaviour.

[faceroll]

If you don't like the premise of a game, feel free to discuss your concerns with the DM. Alternatively, you can leave.

Joining the game and then deliberately working against the premise, however, is not acceptable.

It's certainly not something I would do to friends, anyway.

[Canarr]

Well, that group composition is definitely far from the levels of optimization usually presented here in the playground - which doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. If the GM has put enough thought into party composition to give these specific directions on class combinations, then he should hopefully also have invested enough thought into the rest of his campaign to realize that his NPCs and monsters shouldn't be too optimized, either.

Could be an interesting game.

EDIT:


If you don't like the premise of a game, feel free to discuss your concerns with your DM. Or to leave.

Joining a game and then deliberately working against its premise, however, is not acceptable behaviour.

Signed.

[Vallan3e]

Agreed it's hard not to want to fully optimize a build from 1-20. But like buying a house already built, you optimize what you have/can. I know that every other member in my party is in the same situation, and I just choose to look at my situation as a challenge to play/optimize what I've been given. Good DM'ing is hard to find, but fantastic DM's like mine are really rare! I've been playing with the same group for 24 years. So when the DM says he needs a break from running our epic lvl campaign, but has this other group he'd like us to play and the story line ties in......I'm game. I would hate for him to get tired of providing us with great story lines, intrigue, plot twists, those nice write ups you occasionally get from the DM when something interesting is happening to your character, or that feeling you get when you've been working your way up to that final big encounter that will complete the story line you've spent the last few years working on......:smallsmile: It's all good.

[Keld Denar]

It sounds like you already have all the tools you need. The feats suggested in this thread are all good ideas. In particular, Practiced Spellcaster x2, Versatile Spellcaster, Natural Spell, Natural Bond, and possibly Greenbound Summoning if you really want your DM to hate you...

[Drglenn]

Why did the DM even assign you the builds anyway? Doesn't he trust you to build your own characters?

[Goonthegoof]

That's why I suggested losing 5HD. If the DM is assigning you your character levels there should be a really good reason behind it, and if there isn't getting rid of 5 levels and replacing them with something good is the way to go.

[Vallan3e]

Why did the DM even assign you the builds anyway? Doesn't he trust you to build your own characters?

Our epic characters just hit level 40. Apparently providing fun and exciting content every 2 weeks is a lot of work. DM needs a break for the summer months, so after killing the guy we've been building up to for the past few years one of the gods has created avatars from each of our lvl 40 chars. The avatars were created from the base classes from each of our chars. We've been taken through a portal to ??? and telepathy back is no longer an option. (seems like a nice way to limit any ability to twink or rely on past relationships and by making a "avatar" of old chars you don't feel like you're losing your old char. Smart!) We're 0 lvl divine, which seems like the only benefit is we get our spells back though our devotion to our alignment. Makes me wonder what he has in store for us.